Eisenhower Method
A time management framework that categorizes tasks along two axes — urgency and importance — to clarify that what is important is seldom urgent and what is urgent is seldom important.
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Origin
In a 1954 address to the Second Assembly of the World Council of Churches, Dwight D. Eisenhower quoted an unnamed "former college president": "I have two kinds of problems, the urgent and the important. The urgent are not important, and the important are never urgent." Stephen Covey later formalized the insight into the four-quadrant prioritization matrix in his 1989 book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.
Updated February 22, 2026