Happy Thursday and Happy New Year! This is Back of the Envelope – where I share SE-related things I learned recently.

Today I am going to share a small epiphany I had about prioritizing tasks using the Eisenhower Matrix.

But first, a quick update:

I got a new boss…

Not at work though.

At home.

His name is Adrien, and he is only about 3 weeks old, so he is unreasonably demanding (or I guess reasonable for his age).

Adrien gets pretty upset whenever he is tired (don't we all). And somehow, the only way for me to calm him down is to hold him tight and walk up and down the stairs repeatedly -- which means I get to please the boss AND exercise at the same time! Double win.

Anyhow, the little guy has been keeping us busy, and I am thrilled to welcome him to the family!

Now let's talk about the Eisenhower Matrix for a bit.

(Estimated reading time = 2 minutes)

What's the Eisenhower Matrix

Chances are, you have seen some version of this 4-quadrant matrix at least once in your life:

Not going to dive into the nitty gritty, but the gist of it is that every item on your to-do list could be categorized into one of the four boxes:

• Q1: Urgent and important

• Q2: Not urgent but important

• Q3: Urgent but not important

• Q4: Not urgent and not important

Urgent vs. Important

For a while, I struggled to distinguish between urgent and important (maybe because I never really read into it… until recently).

Urgent tasks are things that require immediate attention to avoid consequences.

It could be that RFI you received this afternoon that the contractor wanted back yesterday… 😑

Or an email or Microsoft Teams message with questions for you to answer.

Almost as if everything urgent is also important… (i.e., Quadrant 1).

If so, what goes in Quadrant 2??

Apparently, one simple way to know if a task is 'important but not urgent' is whether it helps you achieve your visions, goals, or objectives.

And not having a clear vision, goal, or objective means very few tasks goes into Quadrant 2 (which is also the reason for my confusion between urgent and important).

Ok cool… but why does this matter?

Do you often feel like you are always busy but at the same time, not really making significant progress or impact in your life or career?

Turns out, if a person spends all their time doing urgent tasks (Q1 and Q3), they are more likely to be stressed, exhausted, and burned out.

They are constantly doing "busy work" and putting out fires, which takes up a lot of physical and mental energy, leaving no room for "important" Q2 tasks that can actually help them grow and become fulfilled in the long run.

In other words, more Q1 and Q3 will stress you out. More Q2 will improve your life.

But as engineers, we are often stuck in Q1/Q3 mode.

So what to do about it?

Here are three Q2 tasks that we can do to get out of the "urgent task" mode.

1. First, figure out the difference between visions, goals, and objectives.

2. Next, clearly define them.

3. Then, determine more Q2 tasks to achieve them.

Start from there and see how it goes.

I am also still learning and exploring but I hope that makes sense.

Thanks for reading!

Andy Lin
Back of the Envelope/Structural Engineer HQ

PS: My new boss taking a nap on me