What is the crowd's opinion of Priority Matrix?

From 3.5 billion comments

This is not only a thing, its a huge part of ADHD. I remember my therapist once tried to say that ADHD is a misnomer, it shouldn't be "attention deficit" but instead something like "too much attention and don't know where to put it" disorder lol

​

On a more serious note, I recommend googling some prioritization strategies. There's a chart you can use (don't know anything about this app just the first result for my google search) that can be helpful when there's too many things to keep track of in your head!

Sure!

So, the Eisenhower Method is a way of managing all the seemingly-never-ending tasks in your life by prioritizing them & splitting them into specific categories.

DO: these tasks are important & urgent, do them as soon as possible! DECIDE: these tasks are important, but not urgent. Decide when it's best to tackle them. DELEGATE: Tasks that are urgent, but not important, should be handed over to someone else. You've got better things to do... like sleeping! DELETE: Bit of a harsh name, but basically tasks that aren't important nor urgent get thrown to the side. You don't technically have to delete them, of course, but perhaps don't waste too much time on them.

Googling the Eisenhower Method will give you loads of articles & videos with people discussing it more in depth, here's a random one I found.

Other than that, this Notion template simply plops the boxes into Notion for you.

Use the table below the boxes to create tasks, assign them to be "important" / "urgent", and the boxes above will filter appropriately to showcase which are which. You can also create & drag cards around in the box for on the fly organizing! Pretty neat ;^)

Let me know if you need anymore help / explanation! :^)

I really like this approach! It reminds me of Benjamin Franklin's brilliant To Do list. My favorite part: "What good have I done today?"

 

I've been trying to use the Priority Matrix, but it's a little less human than I'd like (having "matrix" in the name doesn't help). I'm going to try incorporating your method and see how it goes.

 

Thanks again!

I’ve used Priority Matrix for about 10 years at work. It’s the only thing that works for me—I’m pretty sure I bought a lifetime license when they first got started. Their are other similar apps (search Eisenhower Matrix) you could check out. I start out by dumping everything in what I call the “someday” square (bottom right). Then I take a break and prioritize them, add due dates, etc. I’m not perfect with it but I’m pretty sure I would be more of a mess without it.

I am biased because I'm one of the developers, but we do have a lot of EAs that use Priority Matrix to work with their executives. There's a pretty powerful Outlook extension that can be used to quickly capture incoming tasks, and you can also set up autoforward rules to send specific keywords to the system. AMA!

You might be running into tenant configuration limitations. We wrote a detailed article dealing with the need admin approval issue, addressing the most common situations. It's possible that you're looking at Teams admin center, but the problem comes from AAD.

You could escalate to your manager's boss. For me, that's the CTO -- also a busy person, but he always makes time for skip-levels.

If your manager is unable/unwilling to unleash you on a relevant task/project, the company is losing money on you. That's just bad people management. I can't speak for your manager's boss, but that's definitely something my boss would get annoyed about and shoot me a "fix this" email regarding.

There's really nothing wrong with just hanging out though. It's strictly a people management problem if your manager can't/won't give you work despite your best efforts. Back when I had downtime, I used it to update documentation, tune performance on old code, learn a new thing, etc. Small here-and-there things not worthy of a whole ass project team, but still are valuable.

> I have put something in his diary to create a personal development plan for me but I sense a complete lack of engagement from him.

Alarm bells! You have asked your manager for a thing, and received zero engagement.

> However, I am very concerned about personal growth when I have to constantly chase my manager for work.

You should spend very little time chasing your manager for work. Ideally, your team has a ~1-2 year roadmap with all the big strategic projects laid out and you should have very little trouble imagining all the creative ways you might fit into those projects. Likely not all of them, but at least some of them. Occasionally you may ask your manager if the direction you're heading on a project fits their vision for that project. Or if your understanding of the current priorities matches theirs. Or you may ask permission to chase a shiny object.

> are there tactics to get through this?

You could appeal to your boss's boss. For my reports that's the CTO who I poke once a year to do skip-levels with all my reports, and a general purpose "open door" policy he has.

I tested Amazing Marvin a while back and it's a great app that also help prioritize tasks. Regardless of the program you choose, you might want to look at this "The Ultimate Prioritization Guide page."

It has a wealth of information about project management and prioritization methods. The Eisenhower method is just one that it discusses. Others prioritization methods include the ABC method and the "MoSCoW" Method.

Some of these techniques may be more suited for businesses where project managers juggle time, resources*, real-world* projects and employees. For instance, it says, "Just because a project is important, it does not mean that it will add any value to what you are trying to achieve." They then go on to list ways to evaluate competing projects in order to effectively choose the ones that have the most positive impact on your business.

They also discuss the Project Prioritization Matrix that shows you how to us actual formulas to assign numerical values to project components.

>Example - " . For every project, you will go through the benchmarks and create a ranking scale from 1-10. At this point, you need to figure out what each of these numbers mean.

Many individuals with simple schedules may not need advanced prioritization techniques that go beyond the basic principles outlined in the Eisenhower method. But it can't help to learn more about prioritization and project management.

I've read your story. I'm sorry to hear that you're having a bad experience with that designer.

​

Now, here's the deal. Let's just focus on hiring the NEW web designer first. Based on my knowledge and experience creating that web should not take too much time. That website is some kind of landing page, a standalone web page, created specifically for the purposes of a marketing or advertising campaign. It's not too complex like Dashboard or E-Commerce web.

​

Then, let's move to how to recruit new web designer. Here's some questions that you need to ask to yourself:

• Is the content on the website available? or do you still need the help of others to create content in it?
• In priority matrix scale, is this project become a very important and requires work as soon as possible?
• How much budget are you ready to spend?
• What about the communication process? Do you need a designer who communicates face to face with you or who can do it remotely? (via online chat only)
• Is the web designer also responsible for maintaining the website performance?

Since you mention it, there's an app for that :). Full disclosure, I am one of the original developers, but check out Priority Matrix (https://appfluence.com).

The point is exactly what you write: Noting down everything so you can focus on what really matters is the key to getting the right things done.