Prioritize Work with the Eisenhower Matrix Template

Sometimes you can’t do it all—and that’s ok. Being successful is more about prioritization than tackling every single task on your to-do list. With the right prioritization techniques, you can tackle the most critical tasks first, schedule others for later, then delegate and delete the rest. It’s a win-win—the important things still get done, but you don’t burn yourself out in the process.
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An Eisenhower Matrix template makes time management simple. You can use it every day, every week, or whenever your to-do list feels out of control. 

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What is an Eisenhower Matrix?An Eisenhower Matrix is a prioritization tool that helps you organize tasks by urgency and importance. It outlines specific actions to take depending on where a task falls within the quadrants of the priority matrix: 

• Urgent and important: Do
• Urgent but not important: Delegate
• Not urgent but important: Schedule
• Not urgent and not important: Delete

When your to-do list feels overwhelming, the Eisenhower Matrix shows you which tasks to work on first—plus how to divide and conquer everything else. 

What is an Eisenhower Matrix template? An Eisenhower Matrix template is a reusable guide that lets you quickly create an Eisenhower Matrix whenever you need to prioritize your task list. If you want to create a matrix every morning or at the start of each week, no problem—just copy the template, add your tasks, and start prioritizing. Having a pre-built template means you don’t have to waste time setting up your Eisenhower Matrix over and over again. Instead, you can just fill in the blanks and follow a predefined workflow to prioritize each task. 
The benefits of a digital Eisenhower Matrix templateAn Eisenhower Matrix is supposed to simplify task management, not create more work for you to do. But luckily, creating your matrix in a digital form means you don’t have to mess around with spreadsheets or manually copy your task list each time. Instead, you can just add your tasks to the matrix, select their urgency and importance, and drag and drop them into the right section. And if priorities change later on, you can easily update your matrix in real time instead of re-copying the entire thing. 
With a digital Eisenhower Matrix template, you can: 

• Simplify decision-making by following a predefined task prioritization process.  
• Quickly add tasks to your Eisenhower Matrix template instead of copying to-do’s over again. 
• See a single source of truth for each task—the to do’s in your matrix aren’t duplicates, they live in your task list and your matrix at the same time. 
• Add contextual information, documents, images, or videos to each task. 
• Share your matrix with project stakeholders to illustrate how you’re prioritizing work.
• Set due dates for tasks you’re delegating or scheduling for later. 
• Drag and drop tasks into different sections of your matrix.
• Easily update your matrix if priorities change later on. 

How to create a digital Eisenhower Matrix templateAt its most basic, your Eisenhower Matrix template should have space to track the following information about each task: 

• Urgency: Urgent or not urgent
• Importance: Important or not important
• Recommended action: Do, delegate, schedule, delete

The best way to do this is by adding two custom tags to your template—one for urgency and one for importance. This allows you to quickly select and see the urgency and importance of each task. Then, create sections in your template for each recommended action: Do, delegate, schedule, or delete. Once you select the urgency and importance of each task, you can drag and drop it into the right section. 
Integrated features

• Add tasks to multiple projects. The nature of work is cross-functional. Teams need to be able to work effectively across departments. But if each department has their own filing system, work gets stalled and siloed. Asana makes it easy to track and manage tasks across multiple projects. This doesn't just reduce duplicative work and increase cross-team visibility. It also helps your team see tasks in context, view who’s working on what, and keep your team and tasks connected.
• Custom fields. Custom fields are the best way to tag, sort, and filter work. Create unique custom fields for any information you need to track—from priority and status to email or phone number. Use custom fields to sort and schedule your to-dos so you know what to work on first. Plus, share custom fields across tasks and projects to ensure consistency across your organization. 
• List View. List View is a grid-style view that makes it easy to see all of your project’s information at a glance. Like a to-do list or a spreadsheet, List View displays all of your tasks at once so you can not only see task titles and due dates, but also view any relevant custom fields like Priority, Status, or more. Unlock effortless collaboration by giving your entire team visibility into who’s doing what by when.
• Start dates. Sometimes you don’t just need to track when a to-do is due—you also need to know when you should start working on it. Start times and dates give your team members a clear sense of how long each task should take to complete. Use start dates to set, track, and manage work to align your team's objectives and prevent dependencies from falling through the cracks. 

Recommended apps

• Gmail. With the Asana for Gmail integration, you can create Asana tasks directly from your Gmail inbox. Any tasks you create from Gmail will automatically include the context from your email, so you never miss a beat. Need to refer to an Asana task while composing an email? Instead of opening Asana, use the Asana for Gmail add-on to simply search for that task directly from your Gmail inbox. 
• Outlook. As action items come in via email, like reviewing work from your agency or a request for design assets from a partner, you can now create tasks for them in Asana right from Outlook. You can then assign the new task to yourself or a teammate, set a due date, and add it to a project so it’s connected to other relevant work. 
• Google Workplace. Attach files directly to tasks in Asana with the Google Workplace file chooser, which is built into the Asana task pane. Easily attach any My Drive file with just a few clicks.
• Slack. Turn ideas, work requests, and action items from Slack into trackable tasks and comments in Asana. Go from quick questions and action items to tasks with assignees and due dates. Easily capture work so requests and to-dos don’t get lost in Slack. 

How to use your Eisenhower Matrix templateOnce you create your template, using it is simple. Here’s how: 

1. Make a copy of your Eisenhower Matrix template.
2. Add each task in your to-do list to the template.
3. Select the urgency and importance of each task. If you’re not sure how to distinguish between urgent tasks and important tasks, check out our Eisenhower Matrix article. 
4. Drag and drop each task into its respective section: Do, delegate, schedule, or delete. 
5. Update the due date and assignee of each task according to the action you’ve selected. 

FAQs  
Where does the name “Eisenhower Matrix” come from? 

The Eisenhower Decision Matrix got its name from the 34th President of the United States, Dwight D. Eisenhower. In a 1954 speech, Eisenhower famously said, “I have two kinds of problems: the urgent and the important. The urgent are not important, and the important are never urgent.” Many decades later, self-help author Stephen Covey took the former president’s words and used them to develop the popular time management tool we use today. 

Do I need an Eisenhower Matrix template? 

If you want an efficient way to organize and tackle your to-do list, an Eisenhower Matrix template can help. The template makes it easy to decide how to deal with each task—so you don’t have to worry about which to-do’s to tackle first. It gives you a logical process and roadmap to follow whenever you have a long list of tasks and need to prioritize your to-do list.

How often should I use an Eisenhower Matrix template? 

You can use an Eisenhower Matrix template whenever you want to prioritize your to-do list. The frequency you choose depends on how often new tasks come in. For example, if you get lots of new assignments each day, you may want to create an Eisenhower Matrix every morning. If you receive assignments less frequently, once per week might work better.

Who should I share my Eisenhower Matrix template with? 

If you’re a manager, share your Eisenhower Matrix template with your team members to help them divide and conquer their tasks. That way, everyone can follow the same prioritization process—and you can make sure your team is working in the most efficient way possible. Plus, prioritization is a great way to avoid overwork and burnout on your team.

​You can create a template by visiting this site. 

This article was first posted here.