Decision fatigue is real—the quality of your choices degrades after making too many decisions without a system. This Eisenhower Matrix template helps you conserve mental energy by quickly categorizing decisions based on their actual importance and urgency. By eliminating or delegating low-impact choices, you preserve your best thinking for decisions that genuinely shape your outcomes.
Decide response to critical time-sensitive situation
Crisis decisions require immediate clear thinking—focus and decide.
Make final call on project with imminent go/no-go deadline
Deadline pressure is real here—gather key facts and commit.
Choose vendor for urgent operational need
Operational blockers cost money every hour—decide to unblock.
Respond to time-limited opportunity with significant upside
Opportunity windows close—ensure you're deciding, not just deliberating.
Make hiring decision with candidate holding competing offer
Talent decisions have deadlines—waiting is often deciding to lose.
Define strategic priorities for the coming year
High-leverage decision—schedule significant uninterrupted thinking time.
Evaluate long-term career path or business direction
Life-shaping decisions deserve calm consideration, not rushed reaction.
Select key strategic partner or major hire
Relationship decisions compound—invest appropriate diligence upfront.
Determine approach to significant investment or purchase
Financial decisions benefit from multiple perspectives and sleeping on it.
Plan resource allocation across competing priorities
Resource decisions shape everything downstream—think systematically.
Decide which non-urgent emails to answer first
Email triage isn't worthy of decision energy—batch and process quickly.
Choose time for routine future meeting
Scheduling decisions have no wrong answers—just pick available slots.
Select design for internal low-stakes presentation
Internal aesthetics rarely matter—choose the first acceptable option.
Pick lunch location for team outing
Social decisions shouldn't consume business decision energy.
Decide format for routine status update
Process decisions should be standardized, not decided each time.
Spending hour deciding what to watch tonight
Entertainment decisions have zero stakes—timebox to 2 minutes.
Debating which brand of commodity office supplies to order
Interchangeable options don't warrant comparison—just choose.
Agonizing over perfect email signature design
Nobody notices email signatures—any reasonable one works.
Researching minor purchases for hours
Time cost often exceeds any savings from optimal choice.
Revisiting finalized decisions to second-guess them
Decided decisions are sunk—focus forward, not backward.
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.
No credit card • setup less 1-minute