THE SECRET TO BEING MORE PRODUCTIVE WITH THE “EISENHOWER MATRIX”

Sara Author

Mar 29, 2023 |

Dwight Eisenhower lived one of the most productive lives you can imagine. He was a two terms President of the USA, before that he was a 5 Star General

Dwight Eisenhower lived one of the most productive lives you can imagine. He was a two terms President of the USA, before that he was a 5 Star General and the President of Columbia University.
He had an incredible ability to sustain his productivity, not just for years but for decades.
It is no surprise that his methods for time and task management, and productivity have been admired and studied by many people. He also developed a productivity strategy known as the Eisenhower Box (or Eisenhower Matrix). It is a simple decision-making tool that you can use as an Art Studio Owner.

Eisenhower’s strategy for taking action and organizing your tasks is simple. Using the decision matrix below, you will separate your actions based on four possibilities.

Let’s see how The Eisenhower Box works for you:

The easiest way to approach this is to ask yourself the question: what tasks are the most important to grow your Art Studio (enroll and retain more Students, make more Money, and save more Time.) With these priorities in mind, it will be much easier for you to see which tasks to do immediately, later, delegate, or eliminate.

You might be doing everything yourself right now, but going through this exercise will clarify what steps you need to take towards your goal to grow your Business: what are the things YOU need to do immediately or in the future, what can you delegate to someone else or eliminate altogether?

Here is an example that you can use as a base and add to it as you wish:

Important and Urgent (Do it):

1. Teach classes
2. Respond to e-mails that raise a problem
3. Write a blog
4. Create a video/podcast
5. Write an offer for a class that is not full

Important not urgent (Schedule):

1. Work on your Marketing strategy to get more students in the door
2. Finalize class schedule for the rest of the year
3. Find Business Partners for cross-promotions
4. Respond to Business-related posts on Social media
5. Review weekly financial statements

Urgent not important (Delegate):

1. Respond to general e-mails
2. Update website
3. Order supplies
4. Follow up with students

Not important, not urgent (Eliminate..OK, reduce the time spent):

1. Read Personal social media
2. Play Video games
3. Watch TV

Every Studio is different, and the best way to see what your particular situation is, to do the following:

• For a week, write down every day what you do, and the time every task takes, including your family time
• At the end of the week, add every task into one of the Eisenhower Matrix quadrants
  
• See what tasks you need to do, schedule, delegate, or eliminate
• The following week, do the tasks based on your Matrix' importance
  

It might take some head-scratching, but once you are done, you will have the clarity of the things that are really important to grow your Studio and the ones that are wasting your time. You will see the difference that this exercise will do to your productivity and, ultimately, your bottom line.

Please share your experience in the comments.

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