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Planning

Eisenhower matrix

Paste your list, then sort it one task at a time. The four boxes fill as you go.

By Nabeel Mustafa. Updated .

Runs in your browser. Nothing is sent, saved, or shared.

Bullets and numbers at the start of lines are removed. Nothing is saved: copy or print before you close the tab.

Nothing to sort yet

Paste your list, then sort it one task at a time with the buttons or the keys 1 to 4.

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The four boxes

The matrix is named after Dwight Eisenhower, who made the point in a 1954 speech that the urgent problems are rarely the important ones. Stephen Covey turned that into the four-box grid in The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, and it has been drawn on whiteboards ever since.

  • Do now: urgent and important. Today.
  • Schedule: important, not urgent. Give it a day and a time.
  • Delegate: urgent, not important. Someone else, or a fast rough version.
  • Drop: neither. Cross it off without doing it.

Why one task at a time

Four empty boxes and a list of twenty tasks is a hard screen to look at, and most people solve it by putting everything in Do now. Sorting one task at a time forces a small decision about each, and the keys 1 to 4 make it fast.

Expect the Schedule box to be the most important one and the one people ignore. Those are the tasks that never become urgent, which is why they never get done. Put them in a calendar slot the same day, or the matrix was only a nicer list.

What this page does not do

It does not save anything. Close the tab and the matrix is gone, which is deliberate: the page never sees your tasks. Use Copy to paste the result into notes or an email, or print it.

It also has no opinion about what is urgent. Urgent here means a deadline that bites soon. Important means it moves something you care about. Only you can answer both.

Sort a to-do list with the Eisenhower matrix

  1. Paste your list

    One task per line. Bullets and numbers are removed.

  2. Sort each task

    Tap a box or press 1 to 4: Do now, Schedule, Delegate, Drop.

  3. Move or tick tasks in the grid

    Each task can be moved, sent back to the pile, or deleted.

  4. Copy or print the result

    Nothing is saved when you close the tab.

Questions people ask

What is the Eisenhower matrix?

A way of sorting tasks by two questions, urgent or not and important or not, into four boxes: do now, schedule, delegate and drop.

Is this Eisenhower matrix tool free?

Yes, with no login. It runs in your browser and nothing you type is sent or saved.

Can I save my matrix?

Copy it as text or print it. The page does not store tasks, so closing the tab clears it.

What goes in the delegate box if I have no one to delegate to?

Tasks that must be done soon but do not deserve your best effort. Do them quickly and roughly, or batch them into one short slot.

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