On any given day there are more things to do. From day to day ideas, opportunities, requests and other demands on your time pile up. Whether as an individual, team or an entire organization there’s no possible way to do everything. That’s where backlogs (lists) come in. A backlog is a container for all of your ideas that could provide value to yourself and to others, as well as the things you simply need to get done. As your backlog grows determining what to start next becomes increasingly tricky. Enter prioritization. There are many different ways to prioritize, but the 34th President of the United States (or maybe his former college president) came up with one of the simplest and most powerful. The Eisenhower Method uses the twin razors of importance and urgency.

“What is important is seldom urgent, and what is urgent is seldom important.”
-Dwight D. Eisenhower

This method is visualized with the Eisenhower Matrix where backlog items are tagged in one of four quadrants, keeping in mind that what is important is rarely urgent.

Items in your backlog are tackled in the following order:

1) Important & Urgent
2) Important & Not Urgent
3) Not Important & Urgent
4) Not Important & Not Urgent

This method of prioritization cuts through the distractions and time wasters and focuses on the things that are the most important and will result in the most valuable outcomes. The end goal is to work towards building a backlog of items that fall into quadrant two, Important and Not Urgent. This moves individuals, teams, and organizations from being panicked and reactive to being thoughtful and proactive.

In the context of software product development, a team that has accumulated overwhelming technical debt will end up with a backlog full of quadrant one critical bugs and defects, requiring immediate attention. In contrast, a team with built-in quality practices will have a quadrant two, value-filled backlog with features and capabilities that will further benefit their customers.

Eisenhower Method in Favro

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