 A, B, C, D. Prioritizing your tasks and activities with the A, B, C, D. Task Evaluation Matrix. When you plan your schedule, you need to have a way to decide what is important and what is not. You also need to decide what is urgent and what can wait. When Eisenhower was a wise man, he understood that urgent things are not always the most important. When deciding what to do first, it is helpful to have a guide. This chart is called a matrix. There are different versions of this matrix. Some people call it the Eisenhower matrix. This is box A. It is for the things that are both important and urgent. These are tasks and activities that you have to do first. Sometimes they are surprises or things that other people need you to do. It causes stress in your life when most of your activities are in box A. This is box B. It is for the things that are important but less urgent. These are tasks and activities that you can plan for. You don't have to do them right away. This box is where you want to have most of your important work. It is less stressful when you have more time to finish and you can be more productive. This is box C. It is for things that are urgent but not important. Sometimes these tasks or activities are things that we don't plan to do or that are really someone else's work. If we have too many activities in this box, we will stay busy but not have time for important things. This is box D. It is for the things that are not important and not urgent. Because they are not productive, these are really time wasters. You should not spend much of your time doing this type of activity. Some examples might include computer games, long phone calls, interruptions and surfing the internet. Well, how do I use this to help me prioritize my tasks and activities? Start with your time journal. By evaluating your daily tasks and activities according to the matrix, you can manage your schedule and prioritize your time to include the things that are most important to you. Priorities are the things that are most important or urgent to you. Prioritize is to put things in order according to how important or urgent they are. Don't forget that everyone has their own set of priorities. What is important to you may not be important to someone else.