The Eisenhower Matrix and The To-Do List: Which Is Better?

Do you struggle with time management? Do you find you’re not as productive as you’d like to be because of that? There are two methods that are commonly used to help you get better at it – the to-do list and the Eisenhower Matrix. Here, we’re going to find out which is better if you want to be more productive.

It can be tricky to keep up with the demands of our daily lives. Finding the perfect time management strategy can help you cope and become more productive. So, without further ado, let’s dive into this comparison.

The Eisenhower Matrix and To-Do Lists  

Using a traditional to-do list is a popular approach to time management. You jot down a list of tasks, ranking them according to how important they are. Then, you begin working through the list, one task at a time. This strategy can be useful, but it doesn’t always consider how urgent a given task is.

The Eisenhower Matrix, on the other hand, helps you order tasks based on both importance and urgency. You can use this strategy to boost your productivity because you can easily identify your most important tasks and focus on them, whilst you delay or delegate less crucial ones.

What to Consider When Choosing Between Them

Before you decide which of these time-management strategies to use, here are some things to consider.

Prioritisation

To prioritise when making a to-do list, you must write all your tasks in order of importance and work through them in the same order. For simple tasks with a short timeframe, this can work well. You may start running into problems when you take on more complicated, longer-term projects, and it might not be as effective at helping you manage.

By contrast, the Eisenhower Matrix takes a different approach. You place each of your tasks into four distinct categories, depending on how vital and pressing they are.

You sort:

• Tasks that are both important and urgent – such as a report with a looming deadline.
• Tasks that aren’t urgent but are still important – like revising for an upcoming test or exam.
• Things that are urgent but not important – This can include tasks you can delegate to others, like scheduling a meeting or parcelling out duties.
• Things that are neither important nor urgent– These are low-priority tasks that can usually wait, such as sending out invoices.

By encouraging you to sort your task like this, the Eisenhower Matrix encourages you to focus and attend to the task that matters themost first, so you aren’t slowed down by trivial tasks, or tasks you could easily delegate.

Importance vs. Urgency

Before you start sticking tasks into different categories, you must decide which tasks are urgent and which are important, plus which are both or neither. Look at each task you must do and decide who should do it and when it needs to be completed. By deciding who should do something you will get an idea of how important it is. If you decide you’ve got to do it yourself, you can safely say it’s important.

By deciding when you need to complete a task, you will get an idea of whether it’s urgent or not. With practice, you’ll get better at deciding what is important and urgent and what isn’t, which will lead to increased productivity because you’ll spend less time categorising and more time doing.

The primary function of a to-do list is to remind you what task you need to do. The Eisenhower Matrix differs from this in that it gives you a framework around which to prioritise tasks. It can also make deciding who to assign tasks to and when to tackle them much easier because it’s easy to incorporate those decisions into the framework. This is something you can’t do with a traditional to-do list.

The Flexibility of the Strategy

When you use a to-do list, you constantly have the pressure of doing all your tasks in a pre-determined order. Organising a to-do list with things you must act on means you must continuously rearrange and update your tasks depending on how critical and pressing they are.

What’s more, when you have a deadline looming, you don’t always have time to evaluate all your tasks. In consequence, you might finish up working on multiple tasks at once and thus defeating the purpose of using a to-list in the first place.

One of the chief benefits of using the Eisenhower Matrix instead is that it allows you the flexibility to choose which tasks you work on depending on how important and urgent they are. Then you can tackle non-urgent tasks at your own convenience and pace.

By using this method, you can plan when to do all your tasks in advance and set aside time for them, so you can ensure nothing gets forgotten.

Time

When you use a to-do list, you tick off each task as you finish them. You might have other tasks on your mind as you work on another, which can distract you and make you less focused. This can make you less productive because the task before you may demand your full attention. If you don’t focus on it 100%, it will take longer for you to complete it. Check out our piece of the perils of context-switching for more.

The Eisenhower Matrix system can help you focus your time and attention on the tasks falling in the important and urgent category. This you focus on critical, high-value tasks and complete them in good time. This has the added benefit of making you less likely to commit any major time management mistakes.

How to Choose the Right Time Management Method for You

To highlight the benefits of each system let’s imagine you must complete a project with a tight deadline. If it’s a simple task, you can use a to-do list to work through sub-tasks involved in chronological order and get things done efficiently.

If, on the other hand, the project you must complete is complex, it would be best to use the Eisenhower Matrix.

When you use the Eisenhower Matrix, you can:

• Place the most critical tasks in the first quadrant indicating they are both important and urgent.
• Place tasks you plan to do in the second quadrant, for example, tasks related to skill development or long-term planning. You can do these tasks gradually because they take more time. These don’t have pressing deadlines but are typically important, so must still be completed.
• Put tasks that you can delegate to others in the third quadrant. For instance, you might need some paperwork by the close of the business day. You can delegate such tasks to ensure they are done but without your personal involvement.
• In the fourth quadrant, you can have tasks that can be delegated or delayed because they aren’t a priority.

Remember, a traditional to-do list serves to remind you of tasks while using the Eisenhower Matrix helps you direct your energy and focus toward the most important tasks first. Consider the nature of the task or project in front of you and then decide on the best time management strategy to use to help ensure you can work effectively and efficiently.

For most tasks, we would recommend using the Eisenhower Matrix as this method has more utility.

Wrapping Up

We’ve seen that both these methods of time management have benefits and a to-do list is a good way to remind yourself about tasks and to tackle short, simple tasks. The Eisenhower Matrix, however, is more suited to complicated tasks that take a while to do and those will last longer or recur.

Did you find this post useful? Check out ‘The 7 Best Time Management Apps for 2022’ before you go.