Consultants face a perpetual balancing act: deliver excellent work for current clients while building a pipeline of future work. When client work consumes all available time, business development stops—leading to the dreaded feast-or-famine cycle. This Eisenhower Matrix template helps independent consultants and consulting teams protect time for both billable delivery and non-billable growth activities that ensure long-term practice stability.
Complete client deliverable due tomorrow morning
Client deadlines directly affect your reputation and future referrals.
Address critical feedback on draft before client presentation
Pre-presentation revisions often have hard time constraints.
Resolve urgent client question blocking their decision
When clients are blocked, your responsiveness becomes visible.
Submit proposal before RFP deadline closes
Proposal deadlines are non-negotiable—late means disqualified.
Handle billing dispute threatening client relationship
Financial disagreements escalate quickly if not addressed promptly.
Write thought leadership article for LinkedIn
Content marketing builds inbound leads—schedule weekly creation time.
Follow up with warm leads from last quarter
Relationship nurturing prevents pipeline gaps during busy periods.
Develop new service offering based on market demand
Service innovation keeps you relevant as markets evolve.
Update portfolio with recent project case studies
Fresh portfolio content supports sales conversations and proposals.
Schedule coffee chat with potential referral partner
Referral relationships require ongoing investment before you need them.
Respond to inquiry from unqualified prospect
Create templates for common inquiries to respond efficiently.
Attend industry webinar without clear learning goal
Passive learning rarely justifies real-time attendance—watch recordings.
Process routine invoicing and expense tracking
Administrative tasks should be batched or automated, not interrupted for.
Reply to non-urgent LinkedIn messages
Social media communication can wait for designated response windows.
Update CRM with contact notes from past meetings
CRM hygiene matters but isn't time-sensitive—schedule weekly maintenance.
Perfecting presentation beyond client requirements
Exceeding scope without compensation trains clients to expect free work.
Scrolling LinkedIn without engagement strategy
Passive scrolling feels productive but generates no business results.
Over-researching topics tangential to current projects
Research rabbit holes consume billable time without adding client value.
Redesigning your website instead of client outreach
Website tweaks are often productive procrastination from sales work.
Comparing your practice to competitors constantly
Competitive awareness helps; competitive obsession distracts from execution.
Save your progress and never lose track of your tasks
Tasks in this quadrant are highly important, and the deadline is right around the corner. It's like having a paper due tonight or a client's system suddenly going down. You have to drop everything else, get on it right now, and give it your full focus. This is your top priority.
This is the foundation for your long-term success. These are things that matter for your future but aren't urgent right now, like learning a new skill, exercising, or planning for next month. Because they're not urgent, they're easy to forget. What you need to do is put them on your schedule, set a fixed time for them, and stick to it.
These tasks may seem urgent, but they're not important to you. They're the kind that interrupt your flow, like unnecessary meetings or small favors others ask of you. The best approach is to let someone else handle them or deal with them quickly, and don't let them steal your valuable time.
Tasks in this quadrant are neither important nor urgent. They're purely a drain on your time and energy, like mindlessly scrolling on your phone. The best approach is simply not to do them, and save that time for the tasks in the Yellow quadrant.
"Thanks to 4todo, our hectic wedding schedule was perfectly organized."
"4todo was an indispensable helper on my long-distance hike."
"Helps me ignore the noise and focus on what moves my work forward."
Save this task list to your 4todo account and start prioritizing what matters most.
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