My Eisenhower Matrix
I know I'm overwhelmed when I start living and dying by my to-do list. Over time, I've learned a flat list just doesn't work for me; there are too many variables it can't hold: importance, urgency, dependencies. My solution is an Eisenhower matrix: a 2x2 grid that sorts work along two axes: urgent vs. not urgent, important vs. not important. The four quadrants tell you what to do first, what to schedule, what to delegate, and what to drop.
In the past, I've built versions on a whiteboard and in tools like Mural, Miro, and Figma, each version with its own drawbacks. With my recent partnership with Claude Cowork, it made sense to try building the version I actually wanted inside that tool. The result is a visualization I'm able to iterate on both structurally as well as with the content.
The tool I built colors items by category, so at a glance I can see if I'm behind on items related to setting up my LLC or if I need to schedule an entire day for writing content. Items are manually draggable and Claude can give me feedback on if it thinks that any classification adjustments need to be made. Hovering any sticky lights up its dependencies: what blocks it, and what it blocks. So I never put a decision to be made into the DO FIRST quadrant when it's blocked by multiple dependencies. And the urgency and importance axes are continuous, not binary. Something can be a little important, or moderately urgent. The classic 2x2 removes that nuance.
That last part is what I keep coming back to. We've been using Eisenhower matrices for decades inside the constraints of paper, whiteboards, and template-bound canvas tools. Four quadrants because that's what fit. No dependency lines because the medium couldn't hold them without creating extraneous noise. Now those constraints are gone, and the question changes: what would the tool look like if you could actually build it for the way you think?
That's what Cowork does. It doesn't give you a better template. It gives you the runway to build the tool around your work, instead of forcing your work to fit the tool.
