Eisenhower Matrix

The Eisenhower matrix sorts every task by two questions — is it important, and is it urgent? — into four boxes: do it now, schedule it, delegate it, or drop it. Type your tasks, drag each one into its box or answer the two questions, then print the one-page matrix or copy a link that reopens the board.

The line behind the name is one Eisenhower quoted in 1954, and he credited it to someone else; the four-box grid was popularised by Stephen Covey in 1989. How the matrix sorts a task.

Not sorted yet 0

Drag a task into a box, or answer two questions for each.

1 DoUrgent and important 0

2 ScheduleImportant, not urgent 0

3 DelegateUrgent, not important 0

4 DropNeither 0

On a keyboard: focus a task, then press 1 to 4 to move it, 0 to unsort it, D to mark it done and Delete to remove it.

Your four lists

Title for this matrix

Paper

The printable page

One page, drawn at the size of the paper you picked.

To keep a PDF instead of printing, choose Save as PDF in the print dialog and set margins to None — the margin is already drawn into the sheet.

How the matrix sorts a task

Nothing here is calculated; every task is sorted by two yes-or-no answers. Important and urgent goes to the first box, do. Important and not urgent goes to the second, schedule. Urgent and not important goes to the third, delegate. Neither goes to the fourth, drop. The question mode asks exactly those two questions, importance first, and moves the card to the box the answers name. Dragging a card does the same thing by hand, and you can drag it again whenever you change your mind — the board keeps no score and makes no judgement of its own.

The board follows the usual layout: urgent on the left, not urgent on the right, important along the top and not important along the bottom, so the first box sits top left and the fourth bottom right. The lists under the board are the four boxes read top to bottom in the order you arranged them. A task you tick as done stays in its box, struck through, until you delete it.

The share link is the board written into the web address after the # sign, as text encoded in base64: the title, then each box's tasks in order, then anything still unsorted. Opening the link rebuilds that board. The board is also kept in this browser's local storage under one key. The printed page is drawn at the real size of the paper you pick, converting millimetres at the CSS definition of 96 pixels to the inch, with each box ruled to hold at least ten lines.

The attribution is worded to match the record. Eisenhower spoke the famous line at the Second Assembly of the World Council of Churches in Evanston, Illinois, on 19 August 1954, and he was quoting "a former college president" he did not name. He drew no grid. The four quadrants were popularised by Stephen Covey in 1989, and the name Eisenhower matrix joined the two later.

Where these numbers come from

1. Address at the Second Assembly of the World Council of Churches, Evanston, Illinois (19 August 1954) — Dwight D. Eisenhower, via Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project
2. What Is Important Is Seldom Urgent and What Is Urgent Is Seldom Important — Garson O'Toole, Quote Investigator, 9 May 2014
3. Habit 3: Put First Things First — FranklinCovey, on Stephen R. Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People (Free Press, 1989)
4. The Mere Urgency Effect — Zhu M, Yang Y, Hsee CK, Journal of Consumer Research 45(3):673–690, 2018

Nothing on this site is medically reviewed. Every figure above was read out of the code that runs on this page, and where a number is our own judgement rather than a published one, the note says so and cites nothing. Method last checked 28 September 2026.

Why urgent keeps beating important

The Eisenhower matrix exists because urgent and important feel like the same thing and are not. Urgency is loud — a deadline, a notification, somebody standing at your desk. Importance is quiet. Left to itself, a day goes to whatever is loudest, and the work that would actually change the next year never has a deadline until it becomes a crisis.

The quote the matrix is named after says exactly this, and it was borrowed. Speaking in Evanston in August 1954, President Eisenhower quoted a former college president: "I have two kinds of problems, the urgent and the important. The urgent are not important, and the important are never urgent." Versions that say "seldom" instead of "never" are later misquotations. The grid itself came thirty-five years afterwards, when Stephen Covey drew the four quadrants in The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People and argued that the second one — important, not urgent — is where effective people spend their time.

There is research behind the pull, too. In experiments published in 2018, Meng Zhu, Yang Yang and Christopher Hsee gave people a choice between two tasks and found they tended to choose the one with a closer deadline even when the other paid more — what they called the mere urgency effect. Deadlines grab attention whether or not they carry any weight.

So the useful move is not working harder in the first box. It is emptying the fourth, shrinking the third, and giving the second a fixed time before anything else can claim it. If the list is long because starting is the hard part, the procrastination type quiz helps you see which kind of delay you are dealing with. When the second box needs a place in your day, the printable ADHD daily planner caps the day at three priorities, and implementation intentions — deciding the when and where in advance — are a well-studied way to make a scheduled task actually happen.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the Eisenhower matrix?

A two-by-two grid that sorts tasks by two questions: is it important, and is it urgent? Important and urgent goes in the first box — do it now. Important but not urgent is the second — schedule it. Urgent but not important is the third — delegate it or shrink it. Neither is the fourth — drop it.

Did Eisenhower invent the Eisenhower matrix?

Not as a grid. In an address in Evanston, Illinois on 19 August 1954, Dwight D. Eisenhower quoted "a former college president" he did not name: "I have two kinds of problems, the urgent and the important. The urgent are not important, and the important are never urgent." He drew no matrix. The four-quadrant version was popularised by Stephen Covey in The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People (1989), under the habit "put first things first", and the grid took Eisenhower's name from the quote.

What is the difference between urgent and important?

Urgent is about time: a deadline today or this week, someone waiting on you, a cost that grows the longer it waits. Important is about consequence: it moves a goal you care about, a person, your health or work you answer for. A useful check for importance is whether it would matter in a month if it never happened at all. Plenty of urgent things fail that check.

What if I have nobody to delegate to?

Then read the third box as "spend as little on this as it will let you". Hand it on if you can, automate it, batch several into one short slot, or do a quick version that is good enough. The point of the box is that these tasks get your time because they are loud, not because they matter, so they should get as little of it as possible.

Which quadrant matters most?

The second: important but not urgent. Covey argued that this is where the time you spend pays back most, because it holds planning, health, relationships and the work that stops next month's crises. It is also the box that loses every contest with a ringing phone. In a 2018 set of experiments, Zhu, Yang and Hsee found that people picked a task with a short deadline over one that paid more, even when the deadline carried no real consequence.

How do I print the matrix or save it as a PDF?

Press the print button and choose Save as PDF as the destination in your browser's print dialog, with margins set to None. The page is drawn on A4 or US Letter — pick either — with your tasks written into the four boxes and blank lines left for more.

How does the share link work?

The link carries the matrix itself. Your tasks and where you put them are written into the web address after the # sign, so anyone who opens the link sees the same board and can rearrange their own copy. That also means anyone who has the link can read the tasks, so share it the way you would share the list. The board is also saved in this browser, so it is here when you come back.

How many tasks should be in the "do" box?

This is our judgement rather than a finding: a handful at most. If the first box holds a dozen things, some of them are urgent to someone else rather than important to you, and belong in the third box — or they are not actually due yet, and belong in the second.

Give the "schedule" box a daily slot with Aura

Aura is a habit tracker for the important things that are never urgent: check them off in a tap, keep the streak, and get a reminder at the time you choose.