Eisenhower principle
This is how you can reduce stress and tidy up your life
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Stressed? Perhaps you will try the Eisenhower Principle, THE method for meaningful prioritization ?! You can find out how she can help you here.
Too often in life we hardly know where to start because of all the to-dos, and we find our way between all of our tasks no time to take a deep breath – let alone for us … Of course, this is often due to the fact that we are simply too busy. Sometimes, however, also plays our prioritization a role. If we do not do this systematically or consistently enough, sooner or later we always end up in front of a large, confusing chunk that simply stresses us, intimidates us and gives us a feeling of powerlessness and helplessness.
Should prevent that the Eisenhower principle, a method of weighting to-dos, which originally comes from the professional environment – but can basically be applied to the whole of life! How it works and why we should always keep the principle in mind, now.
Eisenhower Principle: Prioritize like a: e President: in
The term “Eisenhower Principle” goes back to US President Dwight D. Eisenhower, but that he actually applied or even developed it is an unconfirmed rumor. But it doesn’t matter, after all, not only presidents have a lot going on inside – so it can just as well have been invented by someone else and still be good!
All of our tasks can be carried out according to the supposedly presidential principle Divide into four categories based on two criteria. The two criteria are:
- urgency: How quickly does a matter have to be resolved or dealt with? (Is there a deadline? Does it only make sense at a certain time? …)
- importance: How important or necessary is a matter? (What good will it (me) if I do this? What consequences would it have if it were completely neglected?)
The categories in turn result solely from the different, logically possible combinations of the criteria and are
- Important and urgent: Do it immediately.
- Important, but not urgent: Schedule an appointment for this.
- Urgent, but not important: Possibly. delegate, that is, ask someone else for help. If that is not possible, either delete it or do it spontaneously if the time is right.
- Neither important nor urgent: Then why are we stressed …? Get it off your to-do list!
This is how you can clean up your life with the Eisenhower principle
As I said: The Eisenhower principle is mostly used in job and professional contexts and is used there e.g. B. to tidy up the filing and to distribute tasks. But also in our lives we juggle a lot of different tasks and challenges every day – so why not use it there to create order? Also has the advantage that we can find out what is really important to us … More concretely? More concrete!
- For most people, that is job a big and important to-do in life. It is the prerequisite that we can pay our rent, buy fresh bread on Sundays and ideally it also gives us the feeling of starting something meaningful with our life. The job belongs in the every day Category 1because it is not only important, but has to be done at a certain time every day.
- For example, our personal relationships fall into category 2. They are clearly super-duper important – in fact even more important than the job, which is not so bad, because we can schedule relationship appointments (apart from emergencies or certain phases!) Outside of our working hours. Relationships would therefore not be urgent under this system. The same applies to self-care, relaxation, etc. (also here: except for emergency and exceptional cases!).
- Everyday examples for category 3 are often errands such as shopping, hairdressing appointments, manicures – All of this has to happen at a certain time and then has an acute urgency, but if I have to get by on a Sunday without fresh tomatoes because I didn’t buy one on Saturday, I survive it, just like a week longer with nightmare frize .
- and Category 4? An example of this that some may be familiar with would be scrolling through the Insta feed. This is neither important nor urgent. Most of the time, it just takes up time and afterwards we don’t even feel good and relaxed, on the contrary, we are more jealous or insecure because others are already on vacation while we are on the S-Bahn. Shopping, watching series, gaming – that too belongs to Category 4 when we are stressed and have a lot on our minds, but if we have time, Category 2 is also justified because we relax and ourselves Feeling good (which of course can also apply to Instagram time – it’s all a question of individual use and personality!).
Granted: We can hardly fundamentally change or turn our lives upside down with the help of the Eisenhower Principle, unless we identify one or the other habit here and there as pure time wasters and stressors. In any case, the system can help us to get an overview of our life. And often that’s enough to realize: It’s not that bad after all …