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How to Use the Prioritization Matrix When Every Task is #1 It takes being productive to get things done correctly and on time. So how do you know which tasks are essential and which can wait? The answer is in the Eisenhower Matrix. The matrix took its name after Dwight David Eisenhower. Eisenhower was a general in the US army and the 34th President of the United States from 1953 to 1961. As a five-star general and a Supreme Commander in the US Army, he drafted the strategy for an Allied invasion of Europe. Eisenhower had to make tough decisions every time about which tasks to prioritize out of many he needed to focus on daily. So, he came up with the famous Eisenhower Matrix, or the Prioritization Matrix. What is the Eisenhower Matrix? The Eisenhower Matrix is a technique of rating your tasks based on urgency. It helps you know the critical activities and those tasks that you should bypass. Eisenhower famously said of the Matrix: “Most tasks that are urgent are not important, and most tasks that are important are not urgent.” This quote became the maxim for Eisenhower in managing his time. Now let’s get down to the details of the Matrix. There are four quadrants, which include the tasks you need to do at every point in time. The quadrants are: Do Decide Delegate Eliminate Do Do is the first quadrant in the Prioritization Matrix, and it incorporates important activities. That is, those tasks you need to carry out urgently — crises, deadlines, and issues that need your urgent attention and are highly relevant to your life mission. So how do you know which task falls into this quadrant? It’s simple! Start by analysing your priorities and then establish if it falls within the ‘do it now’ criteria. If the task is achievable within a day, or within 24 to 48 hours, it’s urgent. Another approach you can adopt in prioritizing tasks in this category is to adopt the “eat the frog” principle by Mark Twain. This principle recommends that you do the most urgent activities as soon as you wake up. Here’s a practical example. Let’s say you need to draft a content strategy and submit a report to your manager. It’s Saturday, and the deadline for submission is Monday. Can we say the activity is urgent? Definitely! Decide The second quadrant of the prioritization matrix is Decide. The Eisenhower Matrix classifies tasks in this category as important but not that urgent. They are long-term objectives and tasks with no immediate deadline. Those tasks could include meditation, journaling, studying, family time, and exercising. You can plan out activities in this quadrant for some other period. For instance, you should exercise for good health, but you can allocate time to do it. Schedule these activities in such a way that they don’t transfer to the “Do” or “Urgent” quadrant. Ensure you have sufficient time and dedicate that time to carry them out. Delegate The third quadrant of the prioritization matrix is Delegate. These tasks are not important to you but quite urgent for others. This is where teamwork comes into play. You can technically perform tasks in this category, but it makes sense to delegate them. Delegating tasks will ensure you have more time to pursue activities in your first two quadrants. You should also monitor the tasks you have delegated. You can use email, Skype, or telephone to get feedback. It will only amount to a sheer waste of time if you don’t have a tracking system for delegated tasks. Delete The last quadrant highlights your productivity killers. They are tasks that are not important to your goals. The only way to boost your productivity is to delete them. Some examples are constantly checking your phone, watching movies, or playing video games. They could also be bad habits that you need to identify and delete from your daily and weekly schedule. Successful people have learned how to prioritize and stick to what’s important. They have learned to find a better person for a task or eliminate less significant tasks. Let’s consider two inspiring personalities that have designed their prioritization system. Warren Buffet developed a two-list prioritization model to determine which task deserves his best attention. The bottom line is bypassing things that are important and useful but not top of the priorities. Mark Ford, a business advisor, marketer, self-made millionaire, and author devised his strategy: “Start work on the most crucial priority, take a break, work on the second most important task, take a break, then sort out the less important activities and any tasks he received from other individuals by afternoon.” [2] Mark’s strategy may sound reasonable and easy, but some individuals have also devised their prioritization strategy, just like Mark and Warren. The lesson is simple! Prioritize, focus, repeat. How to Use The Prioritization Matrix When Every Task Is #1 Using the Prioritization Matrix can be tricky if you’re new at it, but by following a few simple steps, you can learn to utilize it in the best way possible. List and Rank Your Priorities Highlight all the tasks you need to carry out in a day. Don’t mind the order or number. Then, classify them based on urgency and importance. Identify any activity that requires prompt action. I’m referring to a task that if you don’t complete that day, it could produce a grave consequence. For instance, if you don’t submit your content strategy, other content writers cannot work. It means you need to check for high-priority dependencies. Define the Value The next step is to examine the importance and assess which of them impacts your business or organization the most. As a rule of thumb, you can check which tasks possess higher priority over others. For instance, you need to attend to client’s requirements before you take care of any internal work. You can also estimate value by examining how the task impacts the people and customers in the organization. In a nutshell, the more impact a task has on people or the organization, the higher the priority. Take out the Most Challenging Task Procrastination is not a symptom of laziness, but avoidance is. The truth is that you will typically avoid tasks you don’t want to do. The former CEO of Goldman Sachs, Lloyd Blankfein, once said he would take out the most dreaded task first thing when he got to the office. It’s simple! Take out any task that you dread first! Brian Tracy called these tasks the frogs you need to eat. That will remove the nagging dread, which mounts pressure on you when you postpone necessary tasks. Know What’s Important to You As long as you are in this cosmos, you will always encounter different choices that may be contradictory to your goals. For instance, a fantastic promotion that requires excessive travel will isolate you from important relationships. If you are not priority-conscious, you may accept it, even though your family is your priority. Therefore, it makes sense to identify what is important to you and to prepare yourself not to compromise those important things for immediate pleasure or gain. Yogi Berra captioned it this way: “If you do not know your destination, you might end up somewhere else.” Establish Regular “No Work” Time YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki established a rule not to check her emails between 6 p.m. and 9 p.m. According to a CNN Business report, she was the first woman to request maternity leave when Google just got started. She prioritizes dinner time with her family despite being the CEO of YouTube Is it possible to cut out time for our relationships and interests outside of work? Of course! That’s why you need to set out your “no work” time. This approach will enable you to renew your energy levels for the next task. Also, you will be in the best position to introspect as you are not in your usual work zone. Know When to Stop You can achieve everything on your list sometimes. After you have prioritized your workload and assessed your estimates, remove the remaining tasks from your priority list and focus on your most urgent and important tasks.

Derek Bbanga is a Certified Emotional Intelligence Practitioner with Genos International teaching emotional intelligence in the workplace In a recent study, when asked, “What are the top issues you face at work?” leaders said that 76% are on the people or relational side. You may not have anyone reporting to you but whether you’re an entrepreneur or a manager in an organisation, you have to inspire your team or clients. Leaders who practice mindfulness, and apply mindful techniques to their leadership of others, are better equipped to cope with everyday leadership challenges and create high performance in others. When you’re mindful, you’re able to both observe and participate in each moment of any action you take while recognizing the implications of those actions for the longer term. The start of being a mindful leader is self-awareness which is the ability to be aware of your own emotions, moods and feelings and the way they are impacting you. Self-awareness leads to self-confidence and self-confidence leads to success. A quote from the book Competent Manager says “Among supervisors, managers and executives a high degree of self-confidence distinguishes the best from average performers.” The self-confidence I am referring to is not arrogance or cockiness, it’s much more about feeling that whatever situation I go into, I’ll be okay. And the only way you can know that you’ll be okay, is if you know yourself well enough to be able to predict what that will be like. The first component of self-confidence is self-assessment – what are my preferences, my likes and dislikes, strengths and weaknesses. It’s important so that going into situations that are going to be challenging, you know to prepare. The second component is emotional awareness. If emotions affect us so dramatically, then we have to know what’s going on inside us and to be aware of our internal state and intuitions. At the core of self-awareness for leaders is that they understand the impact their behavior has on others. Another two critical points in mindful leadership is to what extent do others perceive that you (the leader), is aware of your own strengths and limitations. Also, to what extent do other people notice you asking other people for feedback on how you approach things? How would you do if you had to compare to how they see you and how you perceive yourself? There is a German expression – awareness is curative. Just knowing something is curative. Just having an awareness of your limitations moves you toward protecting yourself against them. Emotional awareness is very important for mindful leaders. Emotional awareness is demonstrating an awareness of your moods and emotions. Emotions are physiological responses that arise in response to an external stimulus. Mindful leadership is about noticing those emotions as they are arising, so that when somebody says something that upsets you, you’re tuned in to your body and you’re aware of your emotional state changing. In fact, bodily sensations are easier to be aware of, so you can use them as a gut check in your emotions. The difference between pictures taken with the Nokia N76 in 2007 and today’s iPhone X is data. The iPhone has many more megapixels giving tiny bits of information from the image taken but they all add up to give a higher resolution as compared to the old Nokia with much less megapixels and data and hence much less sharp images. Similarly with emotions, the more you notice your emotions rising in you, the more pieces of data you have, the greater your emotional resolution – more awareness of your emotions. Did you know the average person has approximately 15,000 thoughts a day and of these about 7500 are negative thoughts or about 5 negative thoughts per minute. Each of those thoughts evoke an emotional reaction although most of them you do not notice as they go on beneath the surface. But sometimes you might be sitting in a meeting with your colleagues at work and suddenly your mood falls off a cliff. It could be a reaction to one of those emotions that are going on in the background that are triggered by one of the 7500 negative thoughts you have. We respond physiologically to these emotions and that affects our mood. So how can mindful leaders inspire performance in others? Well you have to understand those others’ purpose and contribution and what work is meaningful to them. And in order to understand what’s meaningful for others, you need to find out what’s meaningful for you. When you figure out how to create a vision that inspires you, what makes your own work meaningful and gives it purpose, it’s only then that you can inspire others. On his deathbed, Steve Jobs said “Knowing you are going to die releases you from the burden of thinking I cannot follow my heart and create a vision of who I truly want to be.” He wished he had followed this philosophy his whole life. To become a more mindful leader Reflect on feelings when decision-making. Ask others how they feel about potential solutions to problems. Consider issues from multiple perspectives. Be aware of biases in decision-making (e.g., women aren’t as good as men at dealing with certain issues). A flood of research is increasingly proving that a company’s people are the differentiating factor. Mindfulness is all about “people smarts” – it’s about relating to yourself and others. In difficult times, the soft stuff often goes away. But being mindful, it turns out, isn’t so soft and lack thereof can jeopardise your ability to perform, or be compassionate in a crisis. It isn’t a luxury you can dispense with in tough times. At the end of the day, mindful leaders have employees who perform better, suffer less burnout and have more satisfied people working for them.

Ken Gichinga is a Harvard trained economist with a passion for Business Strategy. He serves as the Chief Economist at Mentoria Consulting Economic indicators are pointing to a better business environment. However, for businesses to effectively maximize the upcoming opportunities in 2025, they need to develop a 3-year strategic business plan that outlines the clear sequence of initiatives that they will have to undertake to achieve success. For many businesses, the best-laid plans only exist in the mind of the founder or the team leader, and in the event he or she leaves the company the operations normally come to a grinding halt. There are as many approaches to strategic planning as there are strategy consultants. At Mentoria, we are persuaded by the work of Prof. Michael Porter of Harvard Business School as captured in his seminal essay “What is Strategy?” At the heart of his work, is the idea that for any company to thrive, it must discover its competitive advantage in the market. And such is our approach at Mentoria. We invest many hours in studying various aspects of client businesses- from management to efficiency to competition and innovation. We document our recommendations and provide guidance on implementation. At the end of the process, we believe the client should have a strong understanding of both the strengths and weaknesses of the business as well as the upcoming risks and opportunities in the industry.  I remember during my first job at Microsoft headquarters in Seattle, the company would occasionally bring in consultants to assist in a project. I often wondered why a company would ever bring in outsiders to help in a problem which the company would easily resolve using internal resources. This question still lingers in many people’s mind to this day. Truth be told, an outside consultant is immune to the internal politics of the company and can make more objective recommendations that are in the best interest of the client. Secondly, the consultant brings in a fresh pair of eyes to the business challenges and has the additional advantage of being exposed to the market trends by his experience from previous client briefs. When undertaking an exercise in Strategy, a company need to focus on understanding its competitive advantage in the market. This can only be achieved by conducting a comprehensive analysis of the entire industry. With a broad view of the economy and of the entire industry, it becomes possible for a business to begin to understand its unique value proposition in the market. It very well might be that its competitive advantage lies in pricing or location or efficient supply chain or various other considerations. Once a business understands its competitive advantage, it must go on and develop the specific habitat in which that competitive advantage thrives. I once came across a clothing store that discovered a real market opportunity in sourcing outfits from the United States. The business invested many hours in identifying trendy outfits in shops across New York City. After securing prime mall space in one of the leading malls, it became clear that the vast majority of clients who were interested in the American outfits were plus size and found the clothes too tight for comfort. In retrospect, a bit more market research could have avoided this unfortunate situation. Business veterans say its better to measure the cloth ten times and to cut once rather than to measure once and cut ten times. Once the strategy is clear, the next steps involve clearly communicating it to the entire team. This helps to rally everybody around a central goal and generates a sense of excitement because everybody feels they are working towards the same objective. Few companies have fine-tuned the art of cascading strategic objectives down the organizational hierarchy, eventually resulting in a fundamental disconnect between senior management and the rank and file. The cure for this is to create a wide-range of communication channels that will ensure everyone is reading from the same script. Finally, it is extremely important that the strategic plan is kept alive. This simply means that the strategic plan should be reviewed at least once a year to assess whether the old business assumptions still hold true. What this essentially does is that it provides the business with an opportunity to factor in new developments such as rising competition, new legislation and policies as well as technological developments that may affect the business landscape. Strategic business planning should be an exciting process that provides an opportunity for everyone in the business to participate in the creation of a successful future for the company.