You may have seen the Eisenhower Matrix before. It uses the words “important” and “urgent” to classify thoughts and ideas. This is often used to make to-do lists and stay organized at home or work. Paring down content can be challenging—especially knowing where to start. Approaching your content strategy using the Eisenhower matrix can be beneficial to hone-in on what really needs to be said, and what can be left off the page. The Eisenhower Matrix uses a series of boxes labeled counterclockwise from the upper left-hand corner: important urgent, important not urgent, not important not urgent, not important urgent. It looks like this:
Try to get as granular as possible with your ideas to really be able to use this table efficiently.
Important Urgent
This ideas in this box are the pillars of your presentation. Oftentimes it’s important to have these in the headers of your slides or displayed prominently. Try using the ideas in this box as your outline. These themes will tie together your thoughts and make a more complete story. Focus on your important urgent box when you find yourself in need of true direction.
Important Not Urgent
The information in this box will likely be important, but you could hold on to it for later. The reason you may want to withhold information is to “dangle the carrot” and get your audience asking questions. This could also be information that is great for a follow-up meeting. Ideas for this box include pricing, specific consultation ideas, and proprietary secrets. Try not to use these ideas until the very end—or better yet, save them for a one-on-one consultation.
Not Important Urgent
This is the box that perhaps gets most tricky. There is information that a presentation needs to have to support an idea, but it doesn’t drive the story in a compelling way. Try to really limit the ideas in this box that make it into your presentation. Of course, the information is urgent for a reason, so it must be included, but try not to dwell on these ideas. Avoid any of these topics as structure pieces for your presentation. While they do add to the overall understanding of your pitch, they can be kept brief to make more room for your important data.
Not Important Not Urgent
Identifying information that is not important and not urgent sometimes feels like admitting defeat. Sometimes you just need to “trim the fat,” and these ideas are the first to go. They can be fun anecdotes or random facts—but the truth is your presentation can live without them. Stay true to the presentation style you think will keep the audience interested while recognizing that sometimes too much is too much. There will be items in your presentation that are not important and not urgent, but that add to the audience experience. Keep those items! But if you are looking for ways to keep your narrative clean and concise, this box will be the first place to look for eliminations.
Need an extra set of eyes to help you determine what needs to be said in your presentation and what can be left out? Our content team is ready to take a look!
