Mgr Eisenhower Matrix

---
name: mgr-eisenhower-matrix
description: Sorts your week into an Eisenhower matrix of do, schedule, delegate and drop, with three priorities and a say-no list with the words to use. Use for "run mgr-eisenhower-matrix", "everything feels urgent", "I am running on empty", "prioritise my week", "urgent vs important", "help me say no", "too many things on my plate as a manager", part of the AI for Managers Pack by Polar Bear.
---

# Eisenhower Matrix

## When To Use
You are running on empty and everything feels urgent: messages, approvals, fires, and the important work slides to the evening. This answers which few things deserve your week, what you hand off, and what you say no to.

## When Not To Use
If the whole team is overloaded, sorting your own list will not fix it; use Team Capacity Planning first. If you are exhausted to the point of health worries, a priority grid is not the answer: talk to someone you trust, your own manager or a qualified professional.

## Inputs
- Your task list for the week: paste it, or your calendar and inbox subjects.
- Your team's goals for the period, and how many items you can realistically carry in "do" this week (you set the limit).
If you have none of this, I start from a brain dump you type in five minutes and mark the output as a first draft.

## Approach
Urgent versus important. Eisenhower drew the contrast in his address of 19 August 1954 in Evanston, Illinois (American Presidency Project, presidency.ucsb.edu); the four-box grid came later from practitioners, not from him. The judgment is to test urgency hard, because under pressure everything claims to be urgent and important. The failure it prevents: a "do" box with twenty items, which is the same unsorted list with a nicer frame.

## Workflow
1. Ask three questions: what your team's goals are this period, what your "do" limit is, and what you already know you must not drop.
2. Test each item on two axes. Urgent: a near deadline or someone waiting on you. Important: it moves the team's goals or protects people. Mark each yes or no, with the reason in a few words.
3. Place each item. Do: urgent and important. Schedule: important, not urgent, with a real slot this week, or it moves honestly to drop. Delegate: urgent, not important, with a name and how much authority they get. Drop: neither.
4. Challenge the "do" box. If it holds more than your limit, ask of each item: who is actually waiting, what happens if it waits two days, could someone else answer? Move what fails the test.
5. Pick three priorities for the week from "do" and "schedule".
6. Write the say-no list: each item, who asked, and the words to say, polite and short, with an alternative where one exists.

## Output Format
```markdown
# Eisenhower Matrix
Week of: [date] | Do limit: [number the user set]
## Do (urgent and important)
- [item]: urgent because [reason]; important because [reason]
## Schedule (important, not urgent)
- [item]: [day and time]
## Delegate (urgent, not important)
| Item | To whom | Authority given |
|---|---|---|
| [item] | [name] | [decide and tell me / check with me first] |
## Drop
- [item]: [why it can go]
## Three priorities
1. [priority] 2. [priority] 3. [priority]
## Say no
| Item | Asked by | What I will say |
|---|---|---|
| [item] | [role] | "[short, polite no with an alternative]" |
## Decision
[name] confirms the three priorities and sends the say-no messages by [date]; review the grid on [date].
```

## Done When
- The "do" box is within the limit you set.
- Every "schedule" item has a slot and every "delegate" item has a name.
- There are exactly three priorities, each from "do" or "schedule", and each say-no item has words you would actually send.

## Quality Bar
- Urgency is tested, not accepted: "someone asked" is not the same as "someone is waiting".
- Important means the team's goals or its people, not your inbox order.
- Delegating is about the work and the authority it carries; I never rank people to choose who gets it.
- Eisenhower is credited for the contrast only, never for drawing the grid.

## Next
Run mgr-psychological-safety-check (Team Psychological Safety Check) to learn whether the team feels safe telling you it is overloaded too.

## About the makers

This pack is made by Polar Bear, a consultancy built by ex-McKinsey founders with a dream to make AI work for People, not instead of them. We help our clients build people systems and AI-first ways of working, and we run our own company on Claude. If your team has outgrown the self-serve version, message Pauline (linkedin.com/in/paulinebertry).