Ep 8: How the Eisenhower Matrix Can Help You Overcome Procrastination And Transform Your Productivity

In life and in business we are always striving to ensure we're focusing on the things that will help move the needle forward, so that we can accomplish our goals and objectives.  But sometimes it doesn't always go the way we intended and nor does flow it well, and at times we hit some roadblocks along the way. One issue that can be a struggle and challenge that you experience in your life and business is procrastination. Ugh, that dreaded P word. 

 Well, my friends you're not alone! I'm guilty of it and it happens to me as well. Whether I'm  trying to create a new efficient workflow process in my business, or I'm trying to book my next vacation, procrastination does sometimes creep in leaving me feeling frustrated, stressed, and unproductive. I'm sure some of you can relate to that. 

 In an effort to remediate this, I'm always looking for creative and innovative tools to help me kick procrastination to the curb. In today's podcast, I'll be sharing a tool that can help you overcome procrastination and transform your productivity, so you can kick procrastination to the curb too! Let's get started. 

Transcript

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Hi, and welcome to the Brave Pivot Podcast. I'm your host, Cindy Marie Ferguson. I'm a former corporate girl turned entrepreneur, business educator, and mentor here to help you build a profitable and successful business. After the kids' corporate and chaos. On the podcast, we'll have honesty, meaningful conversations around becoming an entrepreneur, starting a business, building a brand, and my favorite. Systems and processes and so much more. If this sounds like your thing, stick around each Wednesday through guest interviews and solo episodes. I'll be providing insights, tools, business strategies, and actionable support to help you along the way on your entrepreneurial journey. Get ready for some candid conversations, inspirations and invaluable insights. I'm so delighted you're. Let's dive in and get started. Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Brave Pivot Podcast. In life and in business, we're always striving to ensure we're focusing on the things that will help move the needle forward so that we can accomplish our goals and objectives. But sometimes it doesn't always go the way we intend it, nor does it flow well, and at times we hit some roadblocks along the way. One issue that can be a struggle and a challenge that you experienced in your business in life is procrastination. Ugh!. That dreaded P word! Well, my friends, you're not alone. I'm guilty of it, and it happens to me as well, whether I'm trying to create a new efficient workflow process in my business. Or, I'm trying to book my next vacation. Procrastination does sometimes creep in leaving me feeling frustrated, stressed, and unproductive. I'm sure some of you can relate to that. Now, in an effort to remediate this, I'm always looking for creative and innovative tools to help me kick procrastination to the curb. In today's podcast, I'll be sharing a tool that can help you overcome procrastination and transform your productivity so that you can kick procrastination to the curb. The tool that I'll be sharing with you today is called the Eisenhower Matrix. In short, the Eisenhower principle helps you to quickly identify the activities that you should focus on, as well as the ones that you should ignore. President Dwight Eisenhower himself developed the concept behind the Eisenhower Matrix. He used it to help him prioritize and deal with the many high stake issues he faced as a US Army General, then as a Supreme Allied commander of Natal forces, and eventually as the 34th president of the United States. So what is the Eisenhower Matrix? The Eisenhower Matrix, also known as the Eisenhower Decision Matrix, or the Eisenhower important Urgent Matrix, or lastly, as simply as the important urgent matrix. It's a graphical tool used to prioritize tasks by ranking them on two key attributes, importance and urgency. The matrix was derived from a quote attributed to the former us. In a 1954 speech to the second assembly of the World Council of Churches, former US President Dwight D. Eisenhower, who was quoting Dr. J. Roscoe Miller, President of Northwestern University, said, I have two kinds of problems. The urgent and the important, the urgent are not important and the important are never urgent. This Eisenhower principle is said to be how he organized his workload and priorities. He recognized that great time management means being effective as well as being efficient. In other words, we must spend our time on things that are important and not just the ones that are urgent. So let's take a closer look at the two key attributes so we can understand their distinctions, starting with important. Important tasks, align with your values and help you achieve your goals and objectives. These items require planning and thoughtful action. They're often focused on the long term and not the immediate results. This makes it easy to neglect them in the short term for more urgent activities. Moving on to urgent. Now, urgent tasks are time sensitive and demand immediate attention. Often urgent matters come with clear consequences for not completing these tasks. Sometimes we. Important task long enough, and then they become urgent, thereby, of course, causing some stress and anxiety as we rush to get them finished on time. Now, one of the common productivity pitfalls people are challenged with is focusing too much time on urgent tasks and neglecting the important ones. In doing so, this could lead to operating in reactionary mode because you can find yourself putting out fires and reacting to the next urgent thing. Now, by consistently using the tool and distinguishing which tasks and or activities more projects are important and which ones are urgent, you can establish a more proactive approach and help to overcome procrastination at the same time. So how exactly does this tool work? The idea is to make a list of all the tasks that you need to accomplish and sort them into the applicable quadrant. Each quadrant corresponds to a different level of priority. As you identify which task or activities are important, urgent, or a combination of the two, you can just then decide how to handle them. All of your day-to-day tasks and your activities in your projects will fall into one of the four quadrants. Important or urgent and these are the tasks and projects that need to be completed immediately. Important but not urgent. Now, these are the tasks that could be scheduled on your calendar. Urgent but not important tasks. Now these are the tasks that can be de delegated to someone else. And lastly, not important, not urgent. Now these are the tasks and projects that can either be eliminated or scheduled to be completed at a later time. Now that I've shared with you what each of the quadrants represent, let's take a deeper dive into all four of the quadrants. Starting with quadrant number one, urgent and important. Now, these are the tasks and projects you need to do first. Important, and urgent tasks require that you take immediate action. These tasks and projects have deadlines and consequences for procrastinating and not taking action. Most of these tasks are unexpected and coming from an external source. Or things that you put off until you're faced with a looming deadline. Some examples are a last minute deadline that's assigned to you. Or something on a personal note, your dishwasher leaked water all over your kitchen. Now both of these scenarios will have you fighting fires and responding in a reactionary mode. You might wanna be careful in how many of these tasks and projects that you handle simultaneously because you don't wanna find yourself stressed or burned out. Moving on to quadrant number two, important but not urgent. Important, but not urgent are tasks and projects that help you achieve your long-term goals. These may not have a deadline or even an end date, so it's easy to be tempted to put them off in favor of more urgent tasks. However, these tasks have a greater effect on your long-term effectiveness in completing your goals. Some examples include, like for a personal example, our regular chores or maybe maintenance project. One, a professional example is maybe networking. When managing these tasks or projects, a strategy that you could use to avoid a procrastination is to decide when you will tackle each task. You want to set clear deadlines and build these tasks and projects into your schedule. Make sure to leave enough time to finish them by your standards, and also be sure to include a buffer for any unforeseen tasks that may crop up. Moving on to quadrant number three, urgent but not important. These are the tasks and projects that you delegate. These typically prevent you from working towards your goals. Tasks in this quadrant often come from other people. Some examples include maybe booking flights, answering emails, and other messages, or planning a team building exercise. A good strategy to remember is to minimize what you take on from this list. Where possible, attempt to find creative ways to politely decline or delegate these tasks or projects. For everything else, consider studying a routine in your schedule to address other people's concerns. And finally, last but not least, quadrant four. Not important, not urgent. These not important and not urgent tasks are anything that's left on this list is merely a distraction. These are the tasks that actually distract you from achieving your goals and objectives, and don't add any measurable value. So the best way to handle these tasks is to eliminate them from your priorities altogether, or push them back to finish at a later time. Examples include maybe social media scrolling or non-productive coffee chats. Now, the Eisenhower Matrix is a tool that's easy to use and a great tool to add to your toolkit. Using the matrix will help you to prioritize and organize your tasks and projects so you know what tasks you need to be working on first, and what tasks you need to either delegate schedule or eliminate altogether. In doing so, this will result in streamlining your workload and help to overcome that dreaded P word procrastination. Let's go ahead and recap what I covered today. I shared the Eisenhower Matrix. I gave some background on how the concept was developed, and I provided some details on how to use the matrix, and then we took a deep dive of each of the four quadrants, and then I provided examples and strategies for each of them. And lastly, I shared how you can use the tool to help you overcome procrastination. My friends, dealing with procrastination is not easy, but by using the Eisenhower Matrix, it can help you to overcome procrastination and transform your productivity so you can focus on the things that matter most and help to set yourself and your business up for success. I hope that this was helpful, and I invite you to try this tool and add this tool in your toolkit. If you end up trying it out, I'd love to hear from you and I'd love to know how this has helped you kick procrastination to the curb. You can drop me your DM or send me an email@hellocindymarie.co. Thank you so much for joining me today. I hope you enjoyed our conversation. If something I shared today resonated with you, please tag me@cindymarie.co on Instagram. If you enjoyed this podcast, please leave an honest five star review. When you do, it helps us to grow the podcast and helps others to find us as well. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast so you know when the new episodes are being released. You can subscribe right from the app that you're using to listen to this podcast, or you can sign up for email alerts@cindymarie.co. Lastly, if there's something you'd like to hear about in a future episode or if you just wanna stop by and say hello, please feel free to DM me@cindymarie.co on Instagram. Thanks again for listening to The Brave Pivot Podcast and I'll see you next time.