🚨 PLEASE NOTE: The last section of this blog post contains spoilers for the “Busy Doing Nothing” Subscription Box. Proceed with caution! 🚨
The Productivity Series: Busy Doing Nothing
Welcome to a series of blog posts where we will explore a range of productivity and time management techniques and how to implement them within your journal or planner. Check out our other posts here.
If you’re anything like me, you have what feels like a million tasks whizzing around your brain at any one time, and you spend so much time trying to decide what to focus on first that you run out of time to actually DO THE DAMN TASK!
Using a Priority Matrix (sometimes also known as an Eisenhower Matrix) is a great way of filtering your tasks so that you don’t get so bogged down with the “urgent” tasks, that the most important tasks get forgotten.
What is a Priority Matrix?
A priority matrix allows you to categorise your tasks by two variables; urgency and importance. By deciding where each task falls within each variable, you can assign them a square in the priority matrix.
The benefit of this system is that you can easily identify which tasks will help you move closer to achieving your long term goals, and you will also be less distracted by non-important tasks and use your time more effectively.
Creating a Priority Matrix
To create the matrix, split your page into 2 columns and 2 rows.
Column 1 is for urgent tasks, column 2 is for non-urgent tasks. Similarly, row 1 is for important tasks, row 2 is for non-important tasks.
This creates the following 4 categories into which you can sort your task list:
- Both urgent and important – DO IT
- Not urgent, but Important – DECIDE WHEN
- Urgent, but not important – DELEGATE
- Neither urgent or important – DITCH IT
Distinguishing between urgent and important tasks
In order to use the priority matrix successfully, you must be able to distinguish whether your task is urgent or important.
A simple rule of thumb is:
Urgent tasks are those that are time sensitive and require your immediate attention.
Important tasks will help you accomplish your long term goals.
Here is the tricky bit… Urgent tasks are not always important, and important tasks are often not urgent.
It is easy to get bogged down with urgent tasks, leaving no time for the important tasks that will actually help move you closer to accomplishing a long term goal.
Deciding where each tasks falls into the matrix is just the first step…
You’ve categorised your tasks, what next?
Quadrant 1: Urgent and important
These are your DO IT tasks, these should be prioritised to do first in your list!
Quadrant 2: Not urgent, but important
The tasks that are important, but not urgent, are often forgotten or left until last. We call these your DECIDE WHEN tasks. The irony is that these are the actions most likely to move you towards your goals, so take some time now to schedule these into your diary!
Quadrant 3: Urgent, but not important
These are the tasks that are time sensitive but don’t necessarily require your specific skill set. If possible you should DELEGATE these. Is there someone you can pass them on to? Perhaps up-skill a team member (or family member!)
Quadrant 4: Neither urgent or important
If a task on your list is neither urgent, or important, then it may be time to DITCH IT completely! Having it on your to do list is an unnecessary distraction to all of those more important and urgent tasks.
Setting up a Priority Matrix in your journal:
Setting up a priority matrix in your journal is pretty simple, simply divide your page into 4, give each quadrant a header and boom… You’re ready to go!
You have prioritised your tasks, what’s next?
Now you have your task matrix, it’s time to start getting productive! We have a bunch more productivity strategies to share with you, take a look at our productivity hub here!
Busy Doing Nothing?
To celebrate the dispatch of our June 2024 Quarterly Subscription box “Busy Doing Nothing”, we’ve been exploring different strategies for productivity and time management within our blog. If you’re interested to learn more you might want to grab the box!
Want a little sneak peek inside?
We designed a bunch of supplies that help you incorporate different productivity strategies inside your journal. Here are just a few of the items we included:
Any new subscribers to the quarterly sub before the end of June will receive ‘Busy Doing Nothing’ as their first box!
