Free tool · for managers & busy weeks
Eisenhower Matrix Starter
The Eisenhower matrix sorts tasks by importance and urgency into four boxes. Sorted by hand, urgency is a judgment call made task by task. This free starter works it out from the due dates instead. Type each task, mark it High or Low importance, and give it a due date: anything due within 3 days (or already overdue) counts as urgent, and the four boxes fill themselves, soonest due first. Change a date and the task moves. It opens on a fictional team lead's week so you can see it sorting before you type your own.
Take it with you — free, no signup
Direct download. No email, no account — just the files.
What it does
- Works out urgency from each due date — due within 3 days or overdue is urgent — so you never mark a task urgent by gut feel.
- Sorts every task into Do, Schedule, Delegate or Drop automatically, and lists each box soonest due first.
- Clear the example's fixed as-of date and it re-sorts by today's date every time you open it, so the matrix doesn't go stale after the first sort.
- Comes pre-filled with a fictional team lead's open tasks so you can see it working — type over them, and clear the Task, Importance and Due date of any example row you don't reuse.
- Opens in Excel, Google Sheets and LibreOffice — no macros, no signup, nothing saved anywhere but your own file.
Related reading
Own it, don't rent it
Delegating, not just sorting?
This free starter sorts one task list with a fixed 3-day window. The full Eisenhower Matrix & Delegation Planner turns the Delegate box into a per-person hand-off log with check-in dates that flags every overdue follow-up, measures your Do hours against the hours you actually have, and shows each week which tasks their deadline moved into Do or Delegate — with an urgency window you set, room for 150 tasks and a team of 12, a 16-page guide and a printable matrix pad, in one owned workbook for Excel and Google Sheets.
A one-time purchase you keep and reuse every week — no task app subscription, no per-seat fee.
A planning tool, not HR, legal or performance-management advice. Urgency is computed from the due dates you type against a fixed 3-day window. The example tasks are fictional and illustrative. Free to use and to share as-is; please don't resell it.