Eisenhower Matrix
Prioritization Framework Template

Sort every idea or task into one of four quadrants by urgency and importance — Do First, Schedule, Delegate, Don't Do — no scoring, no debate.

Use Template

Two questions. Four quadrants.

The Eisenhower Matrix skips scoring entirely. Answer two yes/no questions per idea or task, and it lands in one of four quadrants — each with a built-in next action. Read how to customize Eisenhower Matrix for your business goals .

Urgent + Important

→ Do First.
Time-sensitive and high-value — act on it today, before anything else.

Not Urgent + Important

→ Schedule.
No deadline pressure, but it moves the needle — block real time for it.

Urgent + Not Important

→ Delegate.
Someone needs it now, but it doesn't need you — hand it off.

Not Urgent + Not Important

→ Don't Do.
Neither pressing nor valuable — archive it and move on.

// the matrix

Urgency × Importance = one clear action

Make two separate assessments of each task:

Is it urgent or not urgent?
Is it important or not important?

Once every idea or task is tagged urgent/important, the backlog sorts itself into four buckets. No more guessing what's next — Do First always surfaces first.

┌──────────────────────┬──────────────────────┐
│        URGENT        │      NOT URGENT      │
│     + IMPORTANT      │     + IMPORTANT      │
│                      │                      │
│       DO FIRST       │       SCHEDULE       │
├──────────────────────┼──────────────────────┤
│        URGENT        │      NOT URGENT      │
│   + NOT IMPORTANT    │   + NOT IMPORTANT    │
│                      │                      │
│       DELEGATE       │       DON'T DO       │
└──────────────────────┴──────────────────────┘

// sorted output

Quadrants that travel with your tickets

The Urgent and Important assessments aren't locked inside Ducalis — push them straight back to your task tracker as labels, custom fields, or board columns, so the quadrant travels with the ticket.

Learn how scores sync back to your task tracker.

┌────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│  DUCALIS → TASK TRACKER                    │
├────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│  "Fix payment bug"                         │
│  Urgent  Yes   Important  Yes              │
│                                            │
│  Do First  →  synced as score field        │
│                                            │
│  ▸ pushed on every quadrant change         │
└────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Example: sorting a real task list

Four tasks, evaluate with two criteria each, one quadrant apiece — this is what an Eisenhower-sorted backlog looks like in practice.

Idea / Task	Urgent	Important	Quadrant
Fix payment bug	Yes	Yes	Do First
Redesign onboarding flow	No	Yes	Schedule
Update Slack integration	Yes	No	Delegate
Rebrand internal wiki	No	No	Don't Do

// native scoring

Sort with Eisenhower Matrix natively in Ducalis

Eisenhower Matrix is a built-in framework — no setup, no custom fields to wire up. Open a board, pick Eisenhower Matrix, and start tagging.

Prefer RICE, ICE, WSJF, MoSCoW, or your own criteria? Switch frameworks anytime — the same backlog carries over.

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│  ASSIGN THIS TASK                              │
├────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│  Urgent          [   Yes   ]  time-sensitive   │
│  Important       [   Yes   ]  high-value       │
│                                                │
│  ▸ Quadrant  Do First · auto-computed          │
└────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Where teams use the Eisenhower Matrix

Anybody can use the matrix to prioritize anything from personal to-dos to job duties — daily triage or yearly planning, the four quadrants stay the same.

┌────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│  MORNING TRIAGE                            │
├────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│  Do First   "Reply to outage ticket"       │
│  Schedule    "Write Q3 planning doc"       │
│                                            │
│  ▸ four quadrants, ninety seconds          │
└────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Morning Triage

Tag the day's inbox in one pass — urgent-and-important rises to the top automatically.

┌────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│  BACKLOG GROOMING                          │
├────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│  47 tickets sorted into quadrants          │
│  Do First 6   Schedule 18                  │
│                                            │
│  ▸ triage a sprint in one pass             │
└────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Backlog Grooming

Run a whole backlog through the matrix before planning — no scoring debate, just two yes/no calls per item.

┌────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│  DELEGATE QUEUE                            │
├────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│  "Update vendor contract" → @ops           │
│  "Schedule demo call" → @sales             │
│                                            │
│  ▸ urgent, not important → handed off      │
└────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Delegation Queue

Everything tagged urgent-but-not-important gets routed straight to the right owner, off your plate.

┌────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│  PERSONAL TO-DO                            │
├────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│  Don't Do   3 items archived               │
│  Do First   "Renew passport"               │
│                                            │
│  ▸ same matrix, daily or yearly scope      │
└────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Personal To-Do

The same four quadrants work for a to-do list as they do for a product backlog — swap the scope, not the tool.

Ducalis—The Decision-Making Toolkit

Ducalis helps companies capture user requests, estimate job size, and prioritize the backlog with the Eisenhower Matrix — or any framework your team prefers.
No credit card required. Unlimited users. No time limit.

Use Eisenhower Matrix Template View pricing

  ┌─────────────────────────┐
  │   URGENT × IMPORTANT    │
  │      = 4 QUADRANTS      │
  │     1 CLEAR ACTION      │
  └─────────────────────────┘
           ↓  ↓  ↓           
         ducalis.io