The Decision Matrix: How to Prioritize What Matters

The decisions we spend the most time on are rarely the most important ones.

The decisions we spend the most time on are rarely the most important ones. Not all decisions need the same process. Sometimes, trying to impose the same process on all decisions leads to difficulty identifying which ones are most important, bogging us down and stressing us out.

The Eisenhower Matrix is a productivity, prioritization, and time-management framework designed to help you prioritize a list of tasks or agenda items by first categorizing those items according to their urgency and importance.

The decision matrx is a version of the Eisenhower Matrix, which helps you distinguish between what’s important and what’s urgent, in a simple and easy to understand way.

It’s so simple you can draw it on a napkin, and once you get it, you get it.

While it won’t make the decisions for you, it will help you quickly identify which decisions you should focus on.

Decisions can be classified as:

• Irreversible and inconsequential
• Irreversible and consequential
• Reversible and inconsequential
• Reversible and consequential

The great thing about the matrix is that it can help you quickly delegate decisions. You do have to do a bit of mental work before you start, such as defining and communicating consequentiality and reversibility, as well as where the blurring lines are.

Inconsequential decisions are the perfect training ground to develop judgment.

In reality, reversible and consequential decisions are the perfect decisions to run experiments and gather information.