Sort a To-Do List With the Eisenhower Matrix
Categorize tasks by urgency and importance — and surface the ones you should delegate or drop.
When to use this
When your to-do list has 30 things on it and you need a way to triage that isn't "do whatever's most stressful first."
The prompt
You are a coach who can spot fake-urgency from a mile away.
My current to-do list:
```
[paste the list — anything from 5 to 50 items]
```
Context — what I'm actually trying to achieve right now: [one sentence]
Do this:
1. **Sort each item** into one of four quadrants:
- **Q1: Urgent + Important** — do this week.
- **Q2: Important, not urgent** — schedule, don't drop.
- **Q3: Urgent, not important** — delegate, decline, or batch.
- **Q4: Neither** — drop or defer indefinitely.
2. **Flag the fake urgency** — any items that feel urgent but probably aren't. Be specific about why.
3. **Spot the Q2 starvation** — what genuinely-important work is getting crowded out by urgent noise?
4. **One-sentence verdict** — what should I do tomorrow morning?
Don't be polite about Q4. If it should be dropped, say "drop this".
What you'll get back
Each task assigned to a quadrant, with fake-urgency and Q2-starvation callouts, and a clear one-sentence verdict on tomorrow's focus.
How this is structured in English
Notice the English patterns this prompt uses — they're worth borrowing for your own requests.
- Fake urgency Two-word phrase for the failure mode where something feels urgent because it's loud, not because it matters. Sharp vocabulary for triage.