Eisenhower matrix
Trade two axes off against each other and place items.
A preset of matrix-2x2. Attribution: Popularised by Stephen Covey (1989), after a remark attributed to Dwight D. Eisenhower. Licence: idea; no restriction.
Variants
- default
Data fields
The fields a spec's page can set for this component (see switchback show eisenhower --json):
x_axisy_axisquadrants
Grounding
Helps: when urgent-looking tasks keep crowding out important ones; people pick spuriously urgent tasks over better-paying ones, a small but replicated effect, though the grid as a fix and its four actions are untested craft
Backfires: when urgency is rated from how pressing a task feels rather than from its real deadline, since spurious urgency is exactly what pulls choices, or when an axis does not discriminate and everything crowds one quadrant
- DPlacing items on a spatial layout defined by two explicit dimensions makes their relative standing on both dimensions easier to judge and compare than a list or table does.Larkin & Simon (1987)
- BPeople prefer tasks framed as urgent (short completion windows) over important tasks with objectively larger payoffs. Separating urgency from importance should therefore counter that bias.Zhu, Yang & Hsee (2018), Mills, Cubitt & Starmer (2026)
- CItems placed inside the same bounded region are perceived as belonging together, even against other grouping cues, so labelled zones make category membership readable at a glance.Wagemans et al. (2012)