The Eisenhower Decision Matrix (below) is a great tool to use to help decide on and prioritize tasks by importance and urgency. It helps us consider which of our activities are important and which are distractions.

Journaling

I have kept an electronic journal since the year 2010.  It is part of my morning routine each day to write my reflections in my journal.  As part of my daily journal routine I time travel back to see what I was doing on this date last year.  Then I look at the year before and travel all the way back to 2010.  I am building up a data set on my own life!  What I have learned is that our memories are a poor way to record what is happening in our lives.  In time our memories become fuzzy and we can completely forget what happened.

One of the things that I have learned by looking backward in my diary is just how much time I have spent working on things which turned out not to be very important.  What I realise now is that I need to spend more time vetting what I am doing.  I need to make sure that my time is spent doing what is important.  Some things are just a waste of time.  If I had reflected more on this then I would have saved myself so much time and effort which ended up being wasted.

Eisenhower Decision Matrix

Through experience I have realised just how important the Eisenhower Decision Matrix really is.  Are you already familiar with this matrix?  Right now I am working through my projects and tasks and categorising them according to the matrix.  Most importantly before taking on new activities and projects I need to evaluate them according to the matrix and learn to say NO more often.  Otherwise our lives can just be a busy trap where we actually achieve nothing of importance.  This document (written for Life Coaches) explains more about the Eisenhower Decision Matrix (Thanks to Kain Ramsay, Strategic Life Coaching  for his permission to share this).

Best wishes,

Tom