The Eisenhower technique helps you to optimize your personal time management at work and in everyday life, thereby effectively reducing everyday stress. An important skill in today’s fast-paced world.
Tasks, projects or commitments can add up faster than you think and put enormous pressure on you. With so much to do, you literally lose track, feel lost and, above all, stressed. It can happen that you get bogged down with too many expenses at the same time and get caught up in unimportant, less urgent to-dos. At this point, a simple to-do list is often no longer sufficient to get an overview.
In order to avoid being overwhelmed by the workload and stress, one must inevitably learn to better prioritize and schedule tasks. The Eisenhower technique is a powerful method to support you in your everyday planning. She differentiates between important, urgent tasks and unimportant, non-urgent tasks. Crucially, important tasks are done immediately and unimportant tasks are either delegated or eliminated.
Dangers of prolonged stress
Everyone has it, nobody wants it – stress, which is mainly caused by constant time pressure. This is often accompanied by a good deal of pressure to perform and perfectionism – after all, there is the expectation of completing all tasks with an error rate of zero. In everyday life – under the double burden of work and private life, the tendency to multitask and the constant availability through digitization – we find less and less rest, find it difficult to switch off and are usually constantly under power.
Not infrequently, this non-stop rush can have immense consequences for health and psyche and end in depression or burnout. Chronic stress is also noticeable through physical symptoms and is caused by the increased amount of stress hormones, which affect various metabolic processes in the body. Examples of this are digestive problems, concentration problems, headaches and back pain and a reduced libido.
Last but not least, chronic stress weakens the immune system because stress hormones block the immune cells. A certain amount of stress is unavoidable and can even provide drive and motivation. However, it is important to find the right balance between work and rest and to ensure that breaks are taken.
Plan like a president – origin of the method
The Eisenhower Principle is a time management method whose name goes back to former US President Dwight D. Eisenhower. Supposedly, he mixed classic time management with a mailbox exercise and thus developed the Eisenhower principle. However, there is no hard evidence that Eisenhower himself practiced or taught the method. However, a reference can be found in a speech by Eisenhower from 1954: “I have two kinds of problems, the urgent and the important. The urgent are not important, and the important are never urgent.” – translated this well-known quote means nothing more than “I have two kinds of problems, the urgent ones and the important ones. The urgent ones are not important, and the important ones are never urgent”, and describes the method in one sentence.
The application of the Eisenhower technique …
… is simpler than you think and is based on one principle: the important is separated from the unimportant, the important things are done before the unimportant. As simple as it may sound at first, setting priorities and unmasking unimportant time wasters can sometimes become a major challenge. In addition to the urgency and relevance of the tasks, the time available for a task also plays an important role.
First you collect all upcoming tasks and list them, then in the next step you evaluate them according to the following two criteria:
1. Urgency
- How quickly does a matter need to be clarified or settled?
- Is there a deadline?
- What if you complete the task later?
2. Importance:
- How important or necessary is a matter?
- What use/advantage do I get from it?
- What would be the consequences of not completing the task?
- Can someone do the job?
By combining the two possible criteria, you can then assign each task to a category. This step is often shown in the form of a matrix in order to be able to better visualize the resulting distribution of tasks.
1. Important and urgent – do it immediately
The first quadrant contains the important and urgent tasks. They have high priority and will be taken care of immediately without being planned or delegated.
2. Important, but not urgent – planning
Important tasks that do not need to be done urgently can be planned. They can be dealt with at a later date. However, they must be planned in good time so that they do not become urgent.
3. Urgent but not important – If possible: delegate
Tasks are often not immediately important, but they are urgent. They can be delegated to someone, that is, given away. If this is not possible, you should cancel the task or do it spontaneously if you have time.
4. Neither Important nor Urgent – Eliminate
These tasks are currently not relevant and should be crossed off your to-do list straight away. This gives you enough time for the important and urgent tasks.
The Eisenhower matrix evaluates tasks according to the criteria of urgency (Urgent) and importance (Important).
© invincible_bulldog / Getty Images
Important when assessing the tasks is the principle that important tasks are always directly related to your personally defined goal.
Working with the Eisenhower technique may seem banal to you at first, and the principle may also seem self-evident. Nevertheless, regularly visualizing and assessing your workload can help you gain an overview of the different areas of your life. A concrete processing plan usually helps to reduce stress – and to recognize that everything is not as bad as initially feared. Last but not least, you can use the technology to identify habits as pure time wasters and stress factors and thus banish them from your life.