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Seems like the obvious approach everyone would take...

markerz 3y ago
People aren’t born with this knowledge. Everything we know is learned… As I’ve gotten older, I’ve learned that everything I’ve learned is something younger or newer people are learning or haven’t learned yet.
exe34 3y ago
A lot of people are overwhelmed with "urgent" tasks and in that state, they find it hard to even realise that some are more important than others. The discipline to say no, I'll do this one really important thing first and everything else can wait isn't something everybody is born with.
- makeitdouble 3y ago
  People inherently understand that there's stuff you can throw someone or money at it. You don't need a long explaination to teach someone that hiring a maid or ordering a meal will help them if they don't have time to cook and it's not important to them. They might need a lesson on delegation, but these quadrants aren't that (you can effectively delegate important and urgent tasks if you have enough trust) Same for stuff that doesn't matter, people don't need a guide on procrastinating away those tasks (nobody's asking if they should skip their local bookclub events they don't care about) The question is naturally what to do about the stuff that won't go away and need to be done sooner or later. And to be honest, the approach of doing it in order isn't a bad one if you get to do it all regardless of the relative importance within the queue. Basically, why do tough choices if you don't need to in the first place ?
  - mklepaczewski 3y ago
    One reason the Eisenhower matrix is a good productivity tool is that it's simple and fast. It doesn't leave much room for fiddling with it or optimizing the process. Many of today's apps are overly complex, allowing users to tinker with them so much that little to no time is left for actually doing tasks. In our experience ( we run a body-doubling platform for remote workers), complex productivity tools don't work, especially for procrastinators. They may be helpful once someone is already productive and organized, but not before. A good rule of thumb is to throw away tools that have a lot of features or complex decision trees.

People aren’t born with this knowledge. Everything we know is learned… As I’ve gotten older, I’ve learned that everything I’ve learned is something younger or newer people are learning or haven’t learned yet.

exe34 3y ago

A lot of people are overwhelmed with "urgent" tasks and in that state, they find it hard to even realise that some are more important than others. The discipline to say no, I'll do this one really important thing first and everything else can wait isn't something everybody is born with.

makeitdouble 3y ago
People inherently understand that there's stuff you can throw someone or money at it. You don't need a long explaination to teach someone that hiring a maid or ordering a meal will help them if they don't have time to cook and it's not important to them. They might need a lesson on delegation, but these quadrants aren't that (you can effectively delegate important and urgent tasks if you have enough trust) Same for stuff that doesn't matter, people don't need a guide on procrastinating away those tasks (nobody's asking if they should skip their local bookclub events they don't care about) The question is naturally what to do about the stuff that won't go away and need to be done sooner or later. And to be honest, the approach of doing it in order isn't a bad one if you get to do it all regardless of the relative importance within the queue. Basically, why do tough choices if you don't need to in the first place ?
- mklepaczewski 3y ago
  One reason the Eisenhower matrix is a good productivity tool is that it's simple and fast. It doesn't leave much room for fiddling with it or optimizing the process. Many of today's apps are overly complex, allowing users to tinker with them so much that little to no time is left for actually doing tasks. In our experience ( we run a body-doubling platform for remote workers), complex productivity tools don't work, especially for procrastinators. They may be helpful once someone is already productive and organized, but not before. A good rule of thumb is to throw away tools that have a lot of features or complex decision trees.