The Eisenhower Box

James Clear shares a set of criteria for allocating time made famous by U.S. President Eisenhower . The "Eisenhower Box" assigns tasks to one of these four values:

1. Urgent and important (tasks you will do immediately).
2. Important, but not urgent (tasks you will schedule to do later).
3. Urgent, but not important (tasks you will delegate to someone else).
4. Neither urgent nor important (tasks that you will eliminate).

I attempt to use this concept at work. In doing so, I have discovered that a missing dimension in the Eisenhower Box is the need to let time pass for more information to become available. And that some urgent tasks may not be important in your work life but are very important in your personal life (spending time in the hospital with a sick spouse, for example) and cannot be delegated.

This is still a useful framework.

-DD