Shift your focus with the Eisenhower Matrix

Have you heard of the Eisenhower Matrix? I’m a big fan of the impact/effort matrix but I hadn’t heard of this one until last week and it immediately made an impression on me.

It’s a simple and effective tool for prioritising and focusing your time. Something that many of us need at this time of year as our minds begin to drift towards summer holidays and Christmas plans.

Using the Eisenhower Matrix, we can organise our tasks into four quadrants – not important or urgent, important but not urgent, not important but urgent, and the tasks that are both urgent and important.

The goal of this tool is to identify urgent and important tasks that will add value to your business and need your immediate attention and focus. And to eliminate, delegate and schedule the rest.  

The tasks that fall into the low urgency and importance quadrant are the ones to avoid, delete or outsource as they’re not a valuable use of your time. The important but not urgent tasks are the ones to delegate to your team. These tasks must get done, but you don’t need to be the one to complete them. Could you outsource this work, or hire an assistant to free up your time to focus on the money-making work?

The tasks that are not time-sensitive but contribute to the long-term success of your business should be scheduled in the diary. 

So with this matrix in mind, what team do you need to build around you to move your focus to the urgent and important tasks and set your business up for success in 2024?

Here are some points to consider: 

1. Are you covered in your business over the Christmas break? We often have employers reach out to us with an urgent need for short-term contract coverage over the break. Don’t wait until it’s too late. If you need support to manage your social media, inbox or client management over the break, now is the time to lock this support in.
   
2. Do you have your current staff members sitting in the right seats, or is it time to review roles and responsibilities? You might discover some capacity in your team to delegate more of your current workload.
   
3. Do you have too many tasks that are stealing your focus from the urgent and important work that is really going to make a difference to your business? Sounds like it’s time to grow your team with a freelancer, contractor or permanent hire. 

A new year is a new opportunity to go bigger in your business, let go of the areas that are not serving you anymore and reach new revenue goals. But how will you get there?  

Don’t spend another Christmas break on the laptop. Stop wasting your time on the tasks that are stealing your focus. 

It’s time now to make the moves your business needs to position it for a stellar start to 2024. Let’s chat about how we can help free up your time and skills.