Eisenhower method

⚡️ This feature is available on Premium plan

You wouldn't find a prioritization technique more popular than the Eisenhower matrix – famously employed by Dwight D. Eisenhower, the 34th president of the United States.

This workflow helps you quickly identify the activities you should focus on and the ones you should ignore. First, you assign to each task whether it is important or not important, and urgent or not urgent. The matrix will then tell you what to do with each task.

Important	Urgent	Section
✅	✅	Do Now
❌	✅	Delegate / Push Back
✅	❌	Do Later
❌	❌	Avoid / Eliminate

To set values for importance and urgency, open the task detail and pick the value on the matrix. Alternatively, select the task in the list and cycle between values using Shift+Arrow Right and Shift+Arrow Left keyboard shortcuts.

caution

This screenshot is from an older version of Lunatask. The app looks different these days, but the functionality of the feature showcased here is the same.

Once you assign importance and urgency to each of your planned tasks, this is how your list will look like:

tip

Some people spend their whole day in this workflow. Others use this workflow only occasionally when they lose the sense of what is important in their Kanban workflow. In that case, switch to the Eisenhower matrix, figure out what is important, reassign statuses and priorities, switch back to the Kanban workflow, and continue working on your tasks.

info

Unlike in Must/Should/Want method, task statuses are available in this workflow.