On a typical day as a doctor working in a hospital or in the community new jobs and tasks arise through the day and it is important to decide if they are important, urgent or urgent and important.
The Eisenhower Matrix is a decision tool attributed to US president Dwight D. Eisenhower who was known to have excellent time management skills. It is a simple visual tool that can be used to prioritise tasks, and in this post I will describe how it can be utilised by doctors.
How to use the Eisenhower Matrix
The first step in using the matrix would be to take a plain piece of paper and divide it into the 4 sections with the following categories as shown in the diagram below:
Diagram 1: The Eisenhower matrix
When you are given new tasks, add them to one of the sections while ensuring that there is space for new tasks that may come up through the day.
Immediate attention
The easiest section to complete is the important and urgent one, in most cases this would be for unwell patients requiring urgent review. To ensure that the tasks are spread out over the four sections I would recommend to keep this section only for patient reviews.
Scheduled tasks
Important but not urgent tasks can include timed tests (e.g. blood test 6 hours after a surgery) and referrals for specialty review that must be done but does not take priority over reviewing unwell patients.
Delegate
Urgent but not important tasks can be delegated to other staff if possible to try and complete it as soon as able. Working as a team helps to ensure that jobs are completed in a timely fashion as inevitably there will always be new jobs to add to your list though the day.
Do it later
The not important or urgent tasks can be left to the end to complete, there may not be many of these on a ward round but could include preparing a discharge summary for a patient that will be discharged the following day.
Summary
The Eisenhower matrix is a simple and effective tool to organise the jobs from a ward round, it helps you to visualise the tasks needed to be completed on a single page. You can even use a different coloured pen for the immediate attention section to make it stand out. I have used this matrix to organise my tasks as a junior doctor for many years and I have found that having a visual representation of how important and urgent tasks are helped me ensure that I proritised effectively.
References
Krogerus, M and Tschäppeler, R 2017, The Decisions Book, Profile Books LTD, London.
Introducing the Eisenhower Matrix 2021, published by FTL3, viewed 17 March 2021, < https://www.eisenhower.me/eisenhower-matrix/>
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