ADHD and Using the Urgent – Important Matrix

(originally published February 23, 2014, updated July 24, 2024)

You might find it hard to decide what to do each day, wondering where to direct your time and energy. Then you get overwhelmed and confused trying to decide what to do on your runway, GTD lingo for all of your discrete tasks(emails, phone calls, next actions on your projects, etc.)

Then you might end up doing what feels the most urgent or interesting. Yet you might not necessarily do what is most important.

One way to turn this around is to use the Urgent – Important Matrix and ask yourself:

• Is this important 
• Is this urgent?

And decide what to do each day.

IMPORTANT AND URGENT – QUADRANT 1

If you have too much in Quadrant 1, you are putting too much on your plate and you are likely also just putting out fires.

It is common for adults with ADHD to feel as if everything is important and urgent. If this is tru for you, you may also look at your long list of to dos and think everything has to be done today! When you think this you may either panic or shut down. 

But you can’t do it all today, of course. You know that. When everything seems important and urgent, it may be time to consider whether you need delegate, defer or even drop some of your activities.

Of course this is easier to do if the tasks are generated by your own initiatives. But if the demands of others (management, spouse, kids, etc) are leading to your overload, it may be time to have a conversation with the people making the demands about what is possible and where you need help.

You will always have urgent tasks. But you can spend less time in Quadrant 1 by spending more time in Quadrant 2 activities.

IMPORTANT AND NOT URGENT – QUADRANT 2

Activities in Quadrant 2 are ones that help support your values and lead you incrementally toward your goals.

You may end up letting some of these fall to the wayside because they are not urgent. Others may eventually fall in Quadrant 1 when you continue to put them off and they become urgent. 

If you struggle to do what is important but not urgent, here are a few strategies that you can use.

• It may be that you have not clearly identified what is important to you, including your goals and values. If this is the case you may just end up doing whatever falls on your plate. To address this you’ll want to get clarity on this. So you can create some urgency and interest.
• Maybe you can identify your values and goals. But you may struggle to initiate and follow through on them. If this is where your challenge, you’ll want to  learn strategies to build your ability to start.
• Last, it is a challenge for many with ADHD to visualize the future consequences of your daily actions. And, because of this you may not trust that this is time well spent, especially when you have so many urgent tasks. The key to address this is to identify why the task is important to you.

You likely will need to experience how an activity helps you before you will feel like doing it though. Try these 5 steps to create motivation when your mojo just is not there.

What are other techniques you use to do the important and not urgent tasks on your list?

NOT IMPORTANT AND URGENT – QUADRANT 3

It is easy to get caught up in the activities in this quadrant if you are in an reactive mode. These are activities such as email and interruption by others, for example. If you spend too much time in this quadrant, you may feel like you haven’t gotten much done at the end of the day.

To spend less time in this quadrant the first key is to identify and set aside time for your important tasks for the day. Once you’ve done this the second key is to use strategies to deal with interruptions you may counter throughout the day, suck=h as the ones below

Here some options:

• If someone interrupts while you are working, try something like: I’d like to talk to you. But I need to finish this report. I can talk at 2:00. Will that work for you? 
• Instead of looking at each email when it comes in, have a system for processing and responding to your emails. Also turn off your email notification.
• The same with your phone. Let calls go to voicemail as much as you can.  
• When a random thought comes up, rather than tending to it in the moment, write it down in a safe place. 
• If you have an office, close your door for a bit each day so you can focus on your work. 

What are other practices you could use for dealing with various kinds of interruptions?

NOT IMPORTANT AND NOT URGENT – QUADRANT 4

In the last quadrant are all the activities that are not important and not urgent. You know the phrase, “Oh, look there goes the fly!” It may be funny sometimes. But it’s not funny when those flies get in the way of doing what you want to do, what is important to you

To avoid spending time on these distractions the key to minimizing the time you spend on these activities is to be aware of where you usually give into these and use strategies such as the following to address them. 

• Use an app like RescueTime to block sites that regularly distract you.
• Whenever possible, find a location to work where there are fewer distractions.
• Turn off your email notification on your computer and phone
• If you can, put your phone away so you don’t see the text messages coming in.
• You might also use the Pomodoro method to create a sense of urgency.

What are other distractions that cause you to focus on activities that are not important or urgent? What can you do to manage these?