Aligning Priorities: How the Eisenhower Matrix Transformed Our Meetings

If you’re interested in productivity tools like the Eisenhower Matrix or curious about why I’ve created a new social media presence for this project, you’re in the right place!

Author

George
September 20, 2024 • Estimated Reading Time: 5 minutes

Introduction

Welcome to Entry 013 of An Entrepreneur’s Logbook! In today’s post, I reflect on a recent management meeting where we took a hard look at how we approach tasks and set priorities as a team. I also dive into why I’ve started a separate social media channel for this podcast and how it’s allowed me more creative freedom. If you’re interested in productivity tools like the Eisenhower Matrix or curious about why I’ve created a new social media presence for this project, you’re in the right place!

Rethinking Our Management Meetings

Today’s management meeting wasn’t our usual quick run-through of updates. Instead, I wanted us to step back and really think about how we run these meetings and what we’re trying to achieve. The big question was: “How can we ensure we consistently meet our goals and align as a team?”

We have a strong, diverse group with different working styles, and while that’s great for creativity, it can sometimes make it hard to keep everyone on the same page. We needed a way to organize our priorities, and I decided to introduce the Eisenhower Matrix as a tool for us to focus on what really matters.

Introducing the Eisenhower Matrix

For those unfamiliar, the Eisenhower Matrix is a very simple yet effective tool that divides tasks into four categories based on urgency and importance. You can subjectively sort your tasks into one of these categories to determine what to do with them:

- Urgent & Important: Do these tasks immediately.

- Important but Not Urgent: Schedule these tasks for later.

- Urgent but Not Important: Delegate these tasks.

- Neither Urgent nor Important: Skip these altogether.

The Eisenhower Matrix

It’s based on a quote from Eisenhower, who said, “What is important is seldom urgent, and what is urgent is seldom important.” My tip: Rephrase and think about if it is important that you do it, not if it’s important that it gets done. It’s supposed to give you a framework to understand where to put your attention. Because there is always more to do and you have to decide where your time is best spent. Using this matrix helped us break down our tasks and figure out which ones deserved our focus.

For those who want to really dive deep into this cool little method, I’d refer you to this: https://slab.com/blog/eisenhower-matrix/

Prioritizing and Following Through

Sorting our tasks into the matrix led to some great discussions. We realized that while we’re good at identifying what needs to be done, we haven’t always been great at taking the next step—actually following through. For example, there’s an initiative we agreed on a while ago, but it never got off the ground because we didn’t tie our decisions to clear actions. This was a wake-up call.

Today, we made a commitment to setting SMART goals—specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound. You know it. But do you always use it? Now, every decision we make is tied to actionable steps, which has already made a big difference in how we move forward. Taking time to talk this through is critical.

Launching a New Social Media Channel

Switching gears, I’ve also made a decision to create a separate Instagram & X channel for this podcast, and I’ll be expanding to platforms like TikTok, YouTube, and Pinterest soon. Why the split? Well, having a dedicated space for this podcast content has been a game changer.

When you post on your personal accounts, you’re always a little aware of who’s watching—clients, colleagues, your network. Even though I’m generally pretty open and comfortable, there’s always that automatic filter in place. By creating a separate channel, I feel like I can speak more freely and genuinely to an audience that’s interested in exactly what I have to say. It’s given me a lot of creative freedom, and I can’t wait to see where it leads.

Conclusion: A Day of Alignment and Freedom

Today’s entry might not feel groundbreaking, but it was an incredibly productive day for both our team and for me personally. The Eisenhower Matrix helped us better align on what’s truly important, and separating my podcast content onto its own social media channels has already made me feel more authentic in my posts.

If you’ve got thoughts on productivity or social media strategies, I’d love to hear from you! Reach out on my new channels. And as always, if you found this post useful, I’d really appreciate it if you could share it with others who might benefit.

Until next time, thanks for being part of An Entrepreneur’s Logbook journey!