The Eisenhower Matrix is a productivity tool popularized by author Stephen Covey that maps your tasks according to their urgency and importance.

Tasks fall into one of four quadrants of a 2x2 matrix:

• Important and Urgent: These tasks require immediate, focused attention but also contribute to your long-­term mission or goals. These are "Do now!" tasks.
• Important and Not Urgent: These tasks are your compounders—­they build long-­term value in your life. You want to spend most of your time and energy here.
• Not Important and Urgent: These tasks can drain time and energy without contributing to your long-­term goals or vision. These tasks are ideally delegated to someone for whom they will be important.
• Not Important and Not Urgent: These are the time-wasting tasks and activities that drain your energy and sap your productivity. These are "Delete!" tasks.

Having spent time with high performers across a range of professional fields, one of the most common struggles I've identified is how to effectively delegate the urgent in order to unlock time for the important.

In other words, we want to build systems to delegate the red box so that we can focus our energy in the top-left quadrant.

Effective delegation is not a subject on any standard school curriculum, so most people have no idea how to do it.

Here's my simple guide to get started on your delegation journey.

There are three core principles of effective delegation:

1. Appropriate Task Profiling

Profile tasks for delegation according to their risk and reversibility.

• Minimal Oversight: Low-­risk, high-reversibility tasks
• Significant Oversight: High-­risk, low-reversibility tasks

For example, calendar management is generally low risk and reversible, so it can be delegated with minimal oversight, while key customer communication is high risk and not reversible, so it should be delegated with significant oversight.

Clear task profiling prior to delegation is essential for effective expectation setting and feedback.

2. Clear Expectations

Establish clear expectations for every task’s completion, including deliverables, timeline, anticipated feedback loops, and risk profile.

For example, asking someone to "do the customer report" is significantly less effective than asking someone to "create the customer report by Tuesday afternoon for the executive team to review before presenting the highlights in a meeting with the board of directors on Wednesday."

The former is vague and ambiguous; the latter provides the clarity of timeline, importance, and use that makes the likelihood of a quality output much higher.

Always ask the person to whom you delegate the task to repeat back the expectations in their own words to confirm mutual understanding prior to proceeding.

3. Infinite Feedback Loops

The most effective delegation involves constant, iterative feedback loops such that the participants get smarter and better as information is gathered.

The participants collaborate on what went well, what was missing, and how the entire process can be improved.

Establish a clear cadence for oversight, feedback, and adjustments, be it a daily, weekly, or monthly check-­in, depending on the task.

The Hierarchy of Delegation

By leveraging these three core principles, you can work your way up from a base level to a top level of delegation.

The three levels of my hierarchy of delegation appear as follows:

1. Base (Direct Delegation): System in which participants are given exact instructions for task completion, monitored closely, given feedback on set schedules, and iterate accordingly.
2. Middle (Semiautonomous Delegation): System in which participants are given upfront instructions for task completion but then manage and iterate on the process independently with only modest oversight or intervention required.
3. Top (Autonomous Delegation): System in which participants are fully aware of the required tasks and operate independently with minimal oversight or intervention required.

The idea is to progress from the base, direct system, to the top, autonomous system, over a period of time.

If you leverage the three core principles of effective delegation, you'll be able to build a system with your teams that works to unlock new time in your life.

Try it and let me know what you think!

P.S. This was an excerpt derived from the Time Wealth Guide section of my New York Times Bestselling book, The 5 Types of Wealth. The Eisenhower Matrix and Hierarchy of Delegation are two of the ~50 actionable systems included in the book. Join 200,000+ others who are diving deeper on these topics and more and get your copy today.

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