ForumsTime ManagementHow to Simply Implement the Powerful Importance–Urgency Matrix
How to Simply Implement the Powerful Importance–Urgency Matrix
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Christoph Dollis |
Here is how to perfectly set up Toodledo to quickly and easily manage the Dwight Eisenhower / Stephen Covey (from The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People) Importance–Urgency matrix for all your tasks.
In Settings > Fields/Functions Used: enable Start Date, Repeat, Priority, Star. You can use more fields if you want, but these are all that are required to have a great, robust system with phenomenally useful prioritized sorting. Note that Toodledo will repeat by Start Date if you do not enable the Due Date field. Instead of using the Due Date field, you can put the due date in the beginning of the title of the task itself, as Michael Linenberger recommends. He uses "DUE: ______ remainder of task title". I use "<<______ remainder of task title". Each to their own. In Settings > Row Style: select "Title is styled by priority". Select High Priority for important tasks; select Low Priority for unimportant tasks. Star urgent tasks; Unstar nonurgent tasks. In all of your task lists, set 1st Sort: Normal–Priority, 2nd Sort: Normal–Star, 3rd Sort: Normal–Alphabetical (or whatever 3rd Sort you prefer). You will see that your tasks are now sorted correctly: Quadrant I. Important, Urgent In your All Tasks section, either HIDE Future Tasks or, better yet, leave all your task lists as SHOW Future Tasks and set up Saved Searches for Today (Checked Off–no AND Start Date–is before–Today OR Start Date–is–Today OR Start Date–doesn't exist), Today & Tomorrow (similar setup to prior: you'll figure it out), Today & Two Days, Week, Fortnight, Month, Quarter, Year, and All: Your tasks are automatically planned at all of these additional time horizons with no extra work on your part! They are all viewable with only a click or two. Nonetheless, they all still use the Importance–Urgency matrix; this works out to be exactly as Randy Pausch of the famous "Last Lecture: Achieving Your Childhood Dreams" advised you to do in his "Time Management Lecture".Quadrant II. Important, Nonurgent Quadrant III. Unimportant, Urgent Quadrant IV. Unimportant, Nonurgent You're done. This message was edited Sep 17, 2015. |
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pawelkaleta |
Nice! Thank you for sharing this idea and very precise and detail description of implementation.
I think I'll give it a try. Hopefully Saved Searches will be available soon on Android app to get full advantages of that. |
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justodaverio15 |
I tried it but it doesn't work. It left like high and low. I'm in a computera nd have silver subscription, is it that the reason? And also What I need is something taht shows me and tell what to do, for example now you need to this and now this. Does this work with the start date function? And also what do you put in strat datE?
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Ummagumma |
I tried to stick to FC method in the past and found it to be too much work. I am not trying to belittle the system, but I honestly think it's overly complicated for most people.
Ideally I want a system that lets me manage my workload with minimum amount of maintenance on my part. This means every tasks has minimum amount of attributes I have to set, and these attributes need to be fast & easy to apply. Really, there's only two types of tasks. Those that have a real deadline - that is, they must be done by particular date. And those that don't have a deadline, i.e. are optional or can be postponed. And the start date is a function of deadline, driven by the number of days you need to complete the task. As far as task management goes - and that's what all these systems are really about - the importance of a task is defined by the effort you must spend on it, and the timing of that effort. And I stress the "must" part. If you absolutely must spend half a day this week on something, it takes precedence over something you can safely postpone until next week, regardless of the perceived relative importance. It doesn't matter if your CEO told you that the company will fold unless your presentation is ready next Friday, as long as you can safely start working on it next Tuesday, it is the next week task. The dates define whether the task is important or not. If a task must be done this week, it must be done, regardless of whether you believe it's important or not. If it can be postponed with no negative results than it can be postponed, again irrelevant of how "important" it is. I really don't see the need for using priorities. If the task is "urgent but not important" to me it means it's either not really urgent (i.e. you don't really have to do it this week) or it's more important than you think. So, I use contexts - @1 This week, @2 Next week, @3 This month, @4 Future and @5 Someday. I only assign due dates when they are real deadlines, and I only assign start dates when I must start xx days ahead of the deadline. So only a third of tasks has any dates, all the rest are organized by context. All tasks get context assigned based on when I need to be working on them. Unlike dates, the contexts can be set or changed extremely quickly even on the phone. Some recurring tasks with a deadline don't get a context, e.g. "File monthly expenses" doesn't really need it. The top 3-4 tasks that I will be working on next get a star. As a matter of principle I never have more than 4 stars, as I can't be focusing on more than 4 tasks at any given time, it is simply not productive. I review the complete task list at least a couple times a week, usually every other day. Otherwise, I am working with saved searches. The "Focus" search shows tasks that are (1) starred, or (2) context @1 Today, or (3) have today start date, or (4) due date today or tomorrow. Grouped by @Context, sorted by date. The "Week ahead" is the same but also includes context @2 This week and tasks with due date in the next 3 days. This is the view I use the most, switching to Focus if things get really intense and I don't want to be distracted. So, for the majority of tasks, all I have to do is set or change @Contest. Minimal list management. This message was edited Oct 15, 2015. |
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coolexplorer |
e20.09g,
I agree with everything you have mentioned, although my set-up is a bit different (I constantly tweak it based on tips given by users like you). Like you I use Saved Custom Views, Stars to mark Today's tasks, and hide a whole bunch of fields. Currently I do use the Priorities field. I am interested to know how you deal with Important but not Urgent tasks. You define the "importance" of a task "by the effort you must spend on it, and the timing of that effort". Isn't that defining the "Urgency" of a task? What about Importance i.e. the Impact of a task, its value in furthering ones Goals? I have a few Important but not Urgent tasks which are Goal and Development oriented. They could potentially have a great impact on my life, but I must admit that I constantly postpone them to a later date. ;( How do you tackle such tasks in your current setup? Once again thanks for your illuminating comments on your setup. This message was edited Oct 17, 2015. |
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Ummagumma |
coolexplorer,
I tried to combine project planning (including goal setting and tracking) with action list - and I don't think this approach works. To me, it's the best to keep them separated. Planning is best done in a free-form, unrestricted format that follows the way your mind flows and allows "what if" branching. I really like mind mapping software for this kind of work, as it can be both structured and free-form. I use XMind (free version) on the desktop, and iThoughts on my iPad. The individual, specific, actionable items from these plans go into a single master task list - that's what I use Toodledo for. The projects are getting reviewed periodically, the task list is being reviewed at least three times a week, likely daily. As I review the action list I assign "soft" timing (no real deadline) or "hard" timing (real deadline) to tasks based on when I need to finish them to get to my goal. I don't need priorities as long as I have this timing. The plans themselves also don't need priority - I kind of know that getting my kids prepared for college is more important than fixing my deck, and each plan has it's own specific actions with their own specific timing. Can an action be stuck in @ Future limbo forever ? Sure. This means that it's either not really that important, or that the context must, at some point, be switched to @ This month and then @ This week. Assigning a priority won't make you work on it any sooner. Can priorities be used instead of contexts ? Sure, they will achieve the same thing. I just find the contexts to be far more descriptive and intuitive. I only use priority when at the end of the day, having reviewed my action list, I have 3-4 starred tasks that I set for tomorrow and one of them needs to be done the first thing in the morning. I then assign the Top priority to it to make it stand out. But this doesn't happen often. |
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proactive |
How sad and silly that we have to engage such workarounds to implement the most important criterion for daily and life planning when all that needs to be added to ToodleDo is a simple field for Quadrant. What would that take in programming time? About 5 minutes? It's a database! Just add the field.
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Adrien Beau |
Posted by proactive:
all that needs to be added to ToodleDo is a simple field for Quadrant. What would that take in programming time? About 5 minutes? It's a database! Just add the field. With all due respect, you have no idea what you are talking about when it comes to "programming time". Adding new data in an application, with all consequences (compatibility, upgrade, API update, application updates, documentation updates, etc.) is very much more than "5 minutes". |
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proactive |
Posted by Adrien Beau:
Posted by proactive: all that needs to be added to ToodleDo is a simple field for Quadrant. What would that take in programming time? About 5 minutes? It's a database! Just add the field. With all due respect, you have no idea what you are talking about when it comes to "programming time". Adding new data in an application, with all consequences (compatibility, upgrade, API update, application updates, documentation updates, etc.) is very much more than "5 minutes". Really? How would there be any compatibly or upgrade or application update issues when we are all logging in through a browser to a database that has native number fields as part of its inherent design. As for the documentation update, here it is: "Hi folks, we added a new number field so you can assign a number to your sorting criteria. We know that our bias is towards GTD but we thought we would try and accommodate some of the folks that lean towards First Things First and priority matrix for organizing their to do's. Just sort on this field like you sort on all the others. Thanks." |
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Salgud |
Posted by proactive:
Posted by Adrien Beau: Posted by proactive: all that needs to be added to ToodleDo is a simple field for Quadrant. What would that take in programming time? About 5 minutes? It's a database! Just add the field. With all due respect, you have no idea what you are talking about when it comes to "programming time". Adding new data in an application, with all consequences (compatibility, upgrade, API update, application updates, documentation updates, etc.) is very much more than "5 minutes". Really? How would there be any compatibly or upgrade or application update issues when we are all logging in through a browser to a database that has native number fields as part of its inherent design. As for the documentation update, here it is: "Hi folks, we added a new number field so you can assign a number to your sorting criteria. We know that our bias is towards GTD but we thought we would try and accommodate some of the folks that lean towards First Things First and priority matrix for organizing their to do's. Just sort on this field like you sort on all the others. Thanks." That might be true, though probably not, if you didn't want to integrate that field into the rest of TD, so you could, o, say, sort and filter using that field. And, in point of fact, as Cristoph pointed out in the original post, why add what you already have? A priority field with 4 levels. For those who want another one, I suggest that is definitely adding way too much uneeded complexity. |
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proactive |
I disagree as the priority field does not do the trick.
Priority has least two elements: importance and urgency. They are two separate concepts. I'm a big believer in the Charles Hobbs model for time management (whose ideas were used by Covey (interestingly they were both from Utah)). The Hobbs model says for each item to be done you give a letter to signify importance; e.g. A = High, B = Medium, C = Low, D = Very Low (and I added R = Reference); and a number to signify order to be done or urgency, with 1 = Urgent, 2 = Soon, 3 = Later, and 4 = Someday. If you give each TBD those two items, your priority is AUTOMATICALLY set as you should be focusing your time on the most important items, not necessarily the most urgent. Frankly, one really needs only 4 fields for an good to do program: Importance, Urgency, Description and Due Date (with Due Date just so you don't overlook something). And to make it an excellent planner, add fields for Role and Goal. And I would suggest another field for Day, with 1 = today, 2 = tomorrow, 7 = this week, 30 = this month, 90 = this quarter. Note: this is different from the urgency field which is designed to help you prioritize the order of activities that you have already chosen to do today. This "Day" field just helps you look at all the stuff you have listed and lets you sort them for daily, short-term, and long-term planning. A good planner lets you change the values in these fields easily so that you can properly plan and manage your time and priorities. |
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coolexplorer |
The request to have Importance and Urgency parameters instead of the omnibus Priority parameter makes perfect sense to me particularly since TD is such a granular and customizable task manager for power users.
Most often using TD I check-off a lot of Urgent but relatively Unimportant tasks, and my really Important tasks never get highlighted enough. Having the Importance parameter will force me to make difficult choices, which is the essence of GTD at the Clarifying stage. In the Priority field I need only Top, High, Low, and Negative. I don't use Medium (which is a cop-out anyway). I would love to have an additional Importance designator so I can use use the 4 priority matrix without a convoluted work-around. I also believe that having some way to Manually Sequence my Days Tasks to times convenient to me would boost my productivity. This message was edited Nov 20, 2015. |
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Salgud |
Posted by coolexplorer:
In the Priority field I need only Top, High, Low, and Negative. I don't use Medium (which is a cop-out anyway). I would love to have an additional Importance designator so I can use use the 4 priority matrix without a convoluted work-around. I guess this is where we differ. Where as you see renaming Top, High, Low and Negative in my mind as Q1, Q2, Q3, and Q4 as a "convoluted workaround", I see it as a simple way to take what's available and reframe to suit my needs. When I was responsible for planning monthly meetings that had a different location every month, I used the Location field to enter the location of the meeting, and ignored the geofencing aspect as I had no need for that. I guess some would consider that a "convoluted workaround", but to me, I was just glad I had a field that I could adapt to my purpose. One man's ceiling... |
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