The Matrix Reviewed: Time Management Tools

There is always something more to do these days and not enough time to do it all. Between the demands of each class, responsibilities outside of the classroom, and a seemingly endless list of potential distractions, it can be hard to find the time or energy to prepare an effective live session for your students. Given the myriad of things vying for your attention, one of the most important time management tools is simply knowing how to prioritize the tasks you are presented with. To help with that, consider the topic of today’s article: the Time Management Matrix.

Also known as the Eisenhower Matrix, this sorting framework was developed by Stephen Covey in his book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, and helps you determine whether or not your tasks are urgent or important, and how to handle each of them based on those determinations.

Urgent tasks are time sensitive concerns: anything with a deadline that’s right around the corner. These might be scheduled assignments with an upcoming due date, emails that need to be answered right away, or any other appointment that will be happening in the near future. Anything that doesn’t need immediate attention is not urgent.

Important tasks are significant to your responsibilities or development. That can include more obvious things like grading assignments, preparing for a live session, or filling out necessary paperwork, but can also involve less apparent topics like maintaining relationships with your colleagues and students, dedicating time to personal/professional development, or practicing self-care. For the purpose of the Matrix, anything that doesn’t fall into those categories is not important. 

From here, you have four potential actions to take depending on the task:

Urgent + Important = DO

This is in many ways the simplest category. If something is important to your job and is considered urgent, it becomes your top priority. Do it now and get it done. 

Not Urgent + Important = DECIDE

If something is important for you to do but doesn’t need to happen right away, pick a time to work on it later, ideally before it becomes urgent. Decide on a due date and/or schedule time to work on these goals.

Urgent + Not Important = DELEGATE

In a perfect world, you might have the time to simply do tasks like these, which aren’t central to your role but do need immediate attention; unfortunately, that’s rarely the case. If something needs to be handled in a hurry but it isn’t ultimately your responsibility, Delegate the task to someone who is more equipped to handle it. 

Not Urgent + Not Important = DELETE

Lastly, these are tasks that can be safely removed from your consideration. Delete them from your checklists and forget about them. You can use that recovered mental energy for your more important and urgent tasks

Taken together, these four D’s imply a system for managing incoming tasks: Delete or Delegate anything that isn’t important, and then focus on Doing the urgent tasks in the present while Deciding when to handle the less urgent things in the future and stop yourself from becoming overwhelmed.

We’ll discuss some strategies for tackling the tasks themselves in upcoming articles (particularly the urgent and important ones), but just applying this framework is a helpful way to turn a chaotic list of things into a prioritized, manageable list, and give you a strategy to tackle it.