Two essential team brainstorm tools for task prioritization

Prioritization is a key component of productivity. After you’ve done a group brainstorm or mapped out your project tasks, identifying where to focus time, effort, and resources is the next step. That’s why we’re excited to share two new brainstorm tools that will help you prioritize tasks quickly and effectively.

Use this online Eisenhower Matrix tool so you don’t get distracted

Motion does not equal progress. One method of prioritization is to distinguish between things that are truly important from those that merely feel urgent. President Dwight D. Eisenhower is credited with observing that “what is important is seldom urgent and what is urgent is seldom important." The implication is that if we focus too much on doing things that are urgent in the moment, we do so at the expense of tasks that are important in the long-run. The solution to this trap is the Eisenhower Matrix.

The Eisenhower Matrix is a 2x2 grid with axes for importance (vertical) and urgency (horizontal). The top half of the matrix is high importance and the bottom half is low; the left two quadrants are for items that are urgent and the right side is for non-urgent ones. To use the tool, assign each item on your project list to one of the quadrants by determining whether or not it is important and whether or not it is urgent. Once you’ve plotted each item on your list, it will be clear where to begin your work (top left, urgent and important), which items to skip entirely (bottom right, neither urgent nor important), and how to prioritize everything in between.

Unlike other Eisenhower Matrix tools you’ll find on the internet, this one doesn’t require an account or login to use. You can access it at eisenhowermatrixtool.com. It saves all your data locally, so if you close the tab, all your prioritization will be there waiting for you when you come back. 

Allocate time and resources more efficiently with the Impact-Effort Matrix

Another way to plan out your tasks is to estimate their impact on your end goal while considering the effort each will require. Imagine that you need to dig a hole. Are you going to use your feet, a spoon, a shovel, or a diesel excavator?

Like the method described above, an impact-effort matrix is a grid with two axes and four quadrants. This time, the vertical (or “x”) axis is for impact and the horizontal (“y”) axis represents effort. High impact is up and low is down; lower effort goes on the left and higher on the right. You use it in a similar manner, too: go through each item on your list one by one. Plot each idea or task on both dimensions, impact and effort, making a judgment about what you’ll need to invest in each one and its prospects for success. Effort may not just be difficulty. It can also mean time, money, personnel, or some other resource. Using our “dig a hole” example, kicking the dirt around won’t be very effective, so that idea we’ll put in the bottom right (high effort, low impact). The other three methods could theoretically achieve the same impact, but obviously with very different amounts of effort. We’ll put the spoon and the shovel in the top right (high effort, high impact) and the excavator in the top left (low effort, high impact).

With your ideas all laid out on the grid, priorities should be revealed. The quadrants of the impact-effort matrix are conventionally named as follows, beginning with the top left and proceeding clockwise: Quick Wins, Major Projects, Time Wasters, and Fill Ins. These four lists of your items reveal where resources can be most effectively devoted to achieve your desired outcomes.

You don’t need an account to get started, so you can start using impacteffortmatrix.com right away.

Our Eisenhower Matrix and Impact-Effort Matrix tools are designed to be lightweight so you can get started right away. Although there’s no way to create an account, your work is saved locally to your computer using your browser’s localstorage, so you can leave and return without losing your progress. 

We’re currently working on building an API for GQueues. Sometime in the future we’ll use it to connect these tools to our task management app so you and your team can collaborate on projects after you’ve completed your prioritization. We’re also exploring other ways to visualize your projects (including in-product Kanban boards) to help you work more effectively. Let us know if there’s something you’d like to see!