Productivity: The Eisenhower Decision Matrix
Productivity. I never cared for it until I hit a wall with my business and personal life. Back in 2009 I decided to take on freelancing full time. It wasn’t all ‘my’ decision, it was because the radio station I worked with closed down and there were little chances to get the same salary anywhere else in the city. July 2009 left me jobless and with debt, this was the worst moment of my young life and the ‘click’ I needed to turn my web design hobby into something real. You can read about my story on PFtoday – Freelancing Success Story – From Debt to a Successful Business, now I’d like us to go a bit further in my personal history and see another crucial moment enfold. In 2014 I became a mother and also tried to keep on working 8-12 hours/day on my web design business. As you can imagine, with a small baby in my hands, things soon got out of whack. There I was, few months into motherhood, exhausted and angry. My business was going downhill and I was stressed out, tired and angry. I started watching some Udemy courses on running a freelancing business and things cleared out in my head: as I could not get more hours a day to work, since I really wanted to be there for my daughter, the logical solution was to do more work in a shorter amount of time, hence become productive. This is when I first heard of The Eisenhower Decision Matrix. As you can guess, the name comes from Dwight D. Eisenhower, who was the 34th President of the US, also a five star general during the WWII. The entire system is based on a quote that’s attributed to him: What is important is seldom urgent […]