Eisenhower matrix

What is the Eisenhower matrix?

The Eisenhower matrix sorts tasks by urgency and importance to decide what to do now, schedule, delegate or drop. Urgent means it needs attention soon. Important means it serves the goals that matter. The name is commonly linked to a 1954 speech in which Dwight Eisenhower quoted a former college president on having two kinds of problems, the urgent and the important.

Why it matters to a revenue leader

Sales managers live in the urgent box, from discount approvals to customer escalations. Important work with no deadline, like coaching and recruiting, slides until it turns into a crisis, such as an empty bench the week a top seller resigns. FranklinCovey teaches the same split as part of Stephen Covey's habit of putting first things first, and steers people toward important work before it turns urgent. For a CRO who manages managers, the matrix gives a plain way to ask where a manager's week went and what could have gone to someone else.

A sales manager at a fire protection company tracks a 50-hour week. Urgent tasks took 30 hours, internal meetings took 12 and coaching and recruiting got 8. She hands routine quote approvals to the branch coordinator and books two recurring coaching blocks. A month later, coaching and recruiting take 14 hours of her week.