Coastal Removals weekly triage
Eisenhower matrix slide with twelve tasks sorted
An Eisenhower matrix is only honest when the delegate quadrant has names attached to it, because otherwise everything drifts back into do. This one sorts a week of jobs for the operations team at Coastal Removals, a fictional removals company.
What is on the slide
- Do, important and urgent
- Quote the Kalinda aged care move. Replace the failed tail lift. Cover two driver gaps on Friday.
- Schedule, important and not urgent
- Rewrite the damage claim process. Book March forklift tickets. Plan the depot 2 racking move.
- Delegate, urgent and not important
- Chase 14 unsigned job sheets. Order 600 wardrobe cartons. Book the two van services.
- Delete, neither urgent nor important
- Redesign the depot noticeboard. Trial a fourth uniform supplier. Rank the 2026 job photos.
- Axes
- Urgency runs across the top from not urgent to urgent, importance runs down the side from high to low, so the position of each quadrant is stated rather than assumed.
When this is the right slide
A labelled urgency and importance grid suits a weekly triage where twelve competing jobs have to be sorted in front of the people who will do them, before anyone opens a calendar.
What to swap it for
Grouping: 2×2 Sections, Two Cards Each. Swap to the two card sections layout when each quadrant needs two named items with an owner and a date rather than a short list of task names.
What this slide shows
A title reads Coastal Removals, This Week, with a framing line saying twelve jobs on the operations list, sorted before anyone opens a calendar. A two by two grid fills the slide with the canonical action labels. Schedule, top left, important but not urgent: rewrite the damage claim process; book March forklift tickets; plan the depot 2 racking move. Do, top right, important and urgent: quote the Kalinda aged care move; replace the failed tail lift; cover two driver gaps on Friday. Delete, bottom left: redesign the depot noticeboard; trial a fourth uniform supplier; rank the 2026 job photos. Delegate, bottom right, urgent but not important: chase 14 unsigned job sheets; order 600 wardrobe cartons; book the two van services. Outside the grid, the axes are labelled: urgency runs left to right from not urgent to urgent, importance runs top to bottom from high to low. Each quadrant holds three bullets, so the lower part of each card is empty space.
When this is the right slide
Use it for a triage conversation with the people who will do the work: a weekly operations meeting, a team planning session, an executive focus setting exercise or the opening of a workload review. The matrix earns its place when there are more jobs than capacity and the argument is about sequence rather than about what the jobs are. Twelve items is about the ceiling for a readable grid. It is the wrong slide for a project plan, because it says nothing about dependencies or duration, and wrong for a portfolio decision where effort and value matter more than urgency. It is also a poor fit where nobody in the room can actually delegate, since a delegate quadrant with no recipient is a list of things that will quietly move to do.
How to adapt it
First, fill the delete quadrant before anything else. It is the cell teams skip, and skipping it means the matrix never reduces the workload. Three jobs named as not being done is a decision the meeting can defend afterwards. Second, write delegate items with a count or a size so the handover is clear. Chase 14 unsigned job sheets tells the receiver what they are taking on; chase paperwork does not, and vague delegation is the main way work comes back. Third, decide the axis meaning for the team and say it out loud once. Urgent usually means a date exists; important usually means the business suffers if it is not done. Teams that never agree those definitions spend every session arguing about placement. Where each quadrant needs an owner and a date rather than a task name, a two by two section layout carrying two cards per cell gives room for both.
What makes this slide work
The delete quadrant is filled, not left empty
Redesign the depot noticeboard, trial a fourth uniform supplier, rank the 2026 job photos. Naming three jobs the team will not do is what makes the other nine credible, and it gives whoever proposed them an answer. A matrix with an empty bottom left cell has not made a decision; it has just relabelled the list.
Delegate names work, not a vague category
Chasing 14 unsigned job sheets, ordering 600 wardrobe cartons and booking two van services are all specific enough to hand over in a sentence. The delegate quadrant fails when it holds abstractions like administration, because nobody can accept a category. Counts in the task names also tell the receiver how big the job is.
The two axes are labelled on the slide
Urgency across the top, importance down the side, with the low and high ends marked. That turns the quadrant names into consequences of a position rather than four headings someone chose. It also settles the recurring argument about whether a task is urgent or merely loud, because the axis makes the claim explicit.
Questions people ask
How many tasks fit on an Eisenhower matrix slide?
Three or four a quadrant, so twelve to sixteen in total. This one carries twelve. Beyond that the type shrinks and the sort loses its value, because the point of the grid is that a room can see the whole week at once. A longer list belongs in the task system, with the matrix used to sort the contested items.
What actually goes in the delegate quadrant?
Work that has a deadline but does not need the person who is currently holding it. Chasing signatures, placing a standing order and booking a service are all urgent and all delegable. The test is whether a competent colleague could finish the job from a one sentence brief, which is also why the task names on this slide carry counts.
Why does the delete quadrant matter?
Because a matrix that only sorts work does not reduce it. Naming three jobs that will not happen gives the team permission to stop, and it answers whoever suggested them. An empty bottom left cell usually means the meeting sorted the list without making a decision, and the same items reappear the following week.
What is the difference between urgent and important?
Urgent means a date is attached; important means there is a consequence if it is never done. Covering two driver gaps on Friday is both. Rewriting the damage claim process is important and not urgent, which is exactly why it keeps slipping, and why the schedule quadrant is the one that needs calendar time rather than goodwill.
When should this be split into two slides?
When the schedule quadrant needs dates. Important but not urgent work only happens if it is booked, so a second slide listing those three items with a week and an owner turns the quadrant into a plan. Keep the matrix for the sort and the follow up slide for the commitment.
How should an Eisenhower matrix be presented out loud?
Read the do quadrant, then spend the time on delegate and delete, which are the two that need agreement. The schedule quadrant should end with dates rather than nods. Reading all twelve items aloud is the usual way this slide takes ten minutes and changes nothing, because the sorting is visible and the negotiation is not.
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