Without a particular system to determine our most urgent tasks, we’ll often do some dilly-dallying and Project Pecking, not actually focusing on the tasks and activities that will bring us the most value.
Essentially, we tend to prioritize tasks that are closest, easiest, and often not the most relevant to our goals and deadlines.
So let’s talk about one of the top tools to strategize your time management: Covey’s time management matrix.
What is the Covey time management matrix?
The Covey Matrix is a popular tool for prioritizing tasks and managing time effectively.
Developed (sort of) by Stephen Covey, an expert in personal development and time management, the matrix is based on the principle of categorizing tasks into four quadrants based on their urgency and importance.
This method helps you to focus on what truly matters, ensuring that time is spent on activities that align with top priorities. By using the Covey Time Management Matrix, you can boost productivity, stay focused, and avoid feeling overwhelmed by the multitude of tasks that demand your attention.
Covey’s time management matrix is a strategic tool for organizing tasks based on their urgency and importance. It is a four-box grid that helps individuals prioritize their activities, focusing on high-value tasks while minimizing time spent on less significant tasks.
This matrix plays a crucial role in boosting personal productivity and offers practical applications to enhance time management skills. By categorizing tasks, you can stay focused on your top priorities and avoid feeling overwhelmed.
Origins of the Covey Time Management Matrix
The Covey Time Management Matrix was first introduced in Stephen Covey’s seminal book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.
Covey suggests the matrix to help individuals and organizations prioritize their work and manage time more effectively.
The concept is also (and originally) known as the Eisenhower Matrix, named after former US President Dwight D. Eisenhower, who famously used this method to prioritize his tasks.
Stephen Covey brought this concept back into the main stream around 30 years after Eisenhower used it.
I’ve decided I will now call this time management method the Not Harder Dot Com Matrix, because I am mentioning it here, in a thing that I’m writing. 🙂
Benefits of Using the Covey Time Management Matrix
Using Covey’s Time Management Matrix can have numerous benefits, including:
Improved time management skills. By categorizing tasks based on urgency and importance, you can manage your time more effectively.
Increased personal productivity. Focusing on high-impact tasks ensures that you achieve more in less time.
Enhanced work-life balance. Prioritizing important tasks helps you allocate time for both work and personal life.
Reduced stress and anxiety. Knowing which tasks to tackle first can alleviate the pressure of juggling multiple tasks.
Improved prioritization of tasks. The matrix helps you identify and focus on tasks that contribute to your long-term goals.
Increased focus on important tasks. By minimizing distractions, you can concentrate on what truly matters.
The quadrants.
The Covey Time Management Matrix is divided into four quadrants, each representing a different category of tasks. Here’s a detailed breakdown of what task goes in which quadrant.
Quadrant 1: Urgent and Important Tasks
Tasks that are both urgent and important should be prioritized first. These tasks typically have deadlines and significant consequences if not completed on time. Examples of Quadrant 1 tasks include meeting deadlines, resolving critical problems, putting out a literal fire in the office, and making important decisions.
Quadrant 2: Important but Not Urgent Tasks
Tasks that are important but not urgent should be scheduled and planned for. These tasks are critical to long-term success and growth, but do not have immediate deadlines. Examples of Quadrant 2 tasks include planning, learning, and networking.
Quadrant 3: Urgent but Not Important Tasks
Tasks that are urgent but not important should be minimized or eliminated. These tasks can be interruptions, distractions, or non-essential activities that derail productivity. Examples of Quadrant 3 tasks include responding to non-essential emails, non-essential meetings, and fighting people on Twitter.
Quadrant 4: Not Urgent and Not Important Tasks
Tasks that are neither urgent nor important should be eliminated or minimized. These tasks are often time wasters and can cause procrastination. Examples of Quadrant 4 tasks include watching excessive TV, playing video games, and engaging in other leisure activities.
Quadrant 4 tasks can still be important to you, personally, and if so, should be scheduled into your day when relevant.
How to use the Covey time management matrix.
Step 1: Prioritize tasks
Gather a list of your current tasks. We’re going to sort tasks into their appropriate quadrant so we know what to tackle first without juggling multiple tasks or getting overwhelmed.
To evaluate tasks, consider when they must be done, if they must be done, if they must be done by YOU, and the consequences and benefits of completing those tasks.
That should give you an idea of your high impact tasks, urgent tasks, kinda pointless tasks, and other tasks that fall somewhere in the middle. Understanding where your tasks fall within the four quadrants is essential for effective prioritization.
Step 2: Place tasks
Use a sheet of paper or sketching software to make your quadrants, logging each task where it belongs.
Urgent and important? Quadrant I to do now.
Not urgent, but important? Quadrant II to prioritize afterward.
Urgent, not important? Quadrant III For fill-in tasks.
Neither urgent nor important? Quadrant IV for possible elimination.
Consider the impact of completing or not completing each task, the impending deadlines, and the requirement that you be the one to perform that task.
Covey time management matrix example.
Let’s get specific to put this into practice. Let’s say you’re a self-employed parent who works from home to take care of the house and kids.
If you’re a web designer, here’s what you might want to get done in a day:
- Client meeting – website launch at 2pm
- Plan next month’s project pipeline
- Social media checking
- Complete overdue project milestone
- Answer unexpected sales calls
- Organizing old project files
- Gaming break
- Start dinner
- Reply to non-critical Slack messages
- Fix printer for kid’s homework
- Son’s parent-teacher conference
- Last-minute grocery run
- Browsing design inspiration sites
- Fix critical bug on client’s live site
- Exercise
- Learning new web development skills
So sort those into their proper quadrants, we consider the urgency and importance of each task. Here’s how I would probably break them down.
Quadrant 1: Urgent and important
- Client meeting – the website launches at 2pm today, so we need to get that done
- Son’s parent-teacher conference – this is at a set time, important for our kid’s education, and we wouldn’t want to put out his hardworking teacher by missing it
- Fix critical bug on client’s live site – key details being critical and live
- Complete overdue project milestone – I could see this one going in a different quadrant, depending on how long it’s overdue and when it’s DUE due
Quadrant 2: Not urgent and important
- Plan next month’s project pipeline – doesn’t have to happen TODAY, but it does need to happen this month
- Start dinner – no one’s going to lose a leg if we’re late on dinner, but we gotta eat
- Exercise routine – personal health is important, but you can be flexible about when it’s completed today
- Learning new web development skills – important for career advancement, but not a huge rush on it
Quadrant 3: Urgent and not important
- Reply to non-critical Slack messages – while not super important itself, keeping in touch with colleagues and clients regularly is important
- Fix printer for kid’s homework – the world won’t end if their homework is late, but they are asking you to do it now
- Answer unexpected sales calls – the phone is ringing, but who cares
- Last-minute grocery run – again, the world won’t end if dinner doesn’t have rolls, but who wants to live like that?
Quadrant 4: Not urgent and not important
- Browsing design inspiration sites
- Organizing old project files
- Social media checking
- Gaming break
These are the items that we aren’t prioritizing, but if we have the time and energy, they’d be nice to do.
Eisenhower Matrix vs Covey Matrix
The Eisenhower matrix and Covey matrix can confuse people. They look and act pretty similarly, in that both are task prioritization techniques that organize tasks into four quadrants, but they do have some key differences.
Just kidding! They’re the same thing! They’re also the same thing as The Not Harder Dot Com Matrix. 🙂
Some sources will tell you that the two tools are USED differently. Here’s what I’ve gathered:
Covey Matrix
- Focuses on the amount of time spent on tasks
- Quadrants are not labeled
- The more prominent the quadrant (going in numerical order), the more time you should spend on the tasks therein
Eisenhower Matrix
- Focuses on the urgency and importance of tasks
- The quadrants are usually labeled as Do, Decide, Delegate, or Delete
- It doesn’t dictate how much time should be spent on each task, rather how each task should be handled
But are they the same thing? Yeah, basically. Feel free to fight me in the comments about it.
Alternatives for the Covey time management matrix.
The Covey Matrix isn’t the only time management tool that helps in prioritizing tasks. We’ve already discussed the Eisenhower Matrix, so let’s touch on a few other tools to help you execute time management skills.
1. The 80/20 Rule or Pareto Principle
The Pareto Principle can be used alongside one of our decision-making matrices. Essentially, this principle states that 80% of your output comes from 20% of your input.
That suggests the majority of our effort goes toward less important tasks. Use an 80/20 assessment to determine what your most impactful tasks and activities are.
2. ABC Analysis
The ABC Analysis is a quicker, easier tool for determining the importance and urgency of tasks. You simply sort your tasks into the following categories:
A: The most important tasks that need to be done immediately.
B: Tasks that are important, but less urgent.
C: Low-priority tasks that can be done later or delegated.
via: Guy who loves the ABC Analysis.
3. MoSCoW Method
The MoSCoW Method could be more suitable for big projects and team management than it is for daily/personal task management.
The tasks are categorized as follows:
- Must have
- Should have
- Could have
- Won’t have (at this time)
4. Time blocking
Time blocking has the user divide their day into blocks with a focus or task for each block of time.
This greatly reduces switching costs, which can save a ton of time.
Setting up time blocking takes a bit more effort and energy than some of these other task management options.
5. The Action Priority Matrix
The action priority matrix is similar to the Eisenhower/Covey/Not Harder Dot Com Matrix.
It uses four quadrants to assign tasks based on the required effort and ending impact.
High impact with low effort is a Quick Win → Do immediately.
Quick Wins are easy and quick to knock out. You might do these early in the day to tie up those loose ends and build some task completion momentum.
High impact with high effort is a Major Project → Schedule and plan.
For Major Projects, consider using strategies like mise en place to minimize time spent and maximize focus.
Low impact with low effort is a Fill-In → Do in between other tasks.
A quick email response, straightening up your desk, dropping a package in the mailbox, etc.
And low impact for high effort is a Thankless Task → Minimize or eliminate.
Thankless Tasks are the whole wheat donuts you bring to the office that no one eats. Save your money and your donuts.
How to manage energy.
Time management is only one part of the productivity equation. Another huge resource to consider is your personal energy reserve.
Energy can be managed in many ways, but the first step is understanding how and when you exert and “create” energy with something like an energy audit.
Use this free energy audit guide to learn more about your personal productivity to strategize and optimize the way you work.
