Multiple tasks needing attention can complicate work and personal life. At times, it can seem impossible to get everything completed on time without missing something important. The multiple demands of work and life can quickly become overwhelming, particularly if there is no method in place to arrange tasks in order of importance and urgency. Creating a straightforward prioritization matrix can help make the approach to addressing responsibilities the most efficient possible.

The first step in creating the matrix is making a list of all the tasks, decisions, projects, or other items needing to be organized. While making this list, consider and take note of the outcome of not completing each task or not making it an urgent and important item. It can help to ask what would happen if a task was done next, done last, or never done instead of being tackled now. The outcome notes are vital to completing the next step.

The list needs to be separated in terms of importance or significance. Using the notes about outcomes in the first step to help, group each task by either high or low importance. This will result in two lists. Next, separate the initial list by level of urgency or criticalness. The result should be four lists, including high importance, low importance, high urgency, low urgency.

Assigning a number value to each item according to importance and urgency is the final step. For example, a high importance and high urgency item would be a number one, where a lower number means a higher priority, and low importance and low urgency time would be a number four. In the middle, high importance and low urgency would be given a two, and low importance with high urgency would be given a three. The final result of this process is a clear list of priorities which can be graphically represented by a two-by-two grid that charts importance and urgency.

Whether it is tackling work projects or organizing a family household, being able to identify what the most crucial items are is invaluable. Creating a simple matrix can help unravel the confusion about how to get everything accomplished efficiently and without meeting deadlines. The matrix also leaves open the opportunity to group items into a category where they are never completed. Having too much to do and too many responsibilities can feel oppressive, and for those who have trouble turning down requests, it gives permission to decline some requests.