With all this talk of elections, it got us thinking of past presidents and the ways in which they impacted our country or, perhaps, even the way we manage our day-to-day tasks. That’s right: tasks! Have you heard of the Eisenhower Matrix for task management?

From 1953 until 1961, Dwight D. Eisenhower served as president of the United States (and before that, he served as an army general and Allied Forces Supreme Commander during World War II). It’s safe to say, he was a person with vast experience in managing tasks and discerning the importance of those tasks in order to complete everything in a timely and appropriate manner. The system he created, which is still widely used today, is known as the Eisenhower (or Urgent-Important) Matrix.

The basic premise of this system is that it allows you to prioritize tasks based on levels of urgency and importance. When you use the matrix daily or weekly, you can visually categorize your “to-do” list in a way that clearly indicates where you should begin. Urgent and important tasks come first (often people refer to these as the “fires” that need to be put out), not urgent and important tasks should be scheduled on the calendar, urgent and unimportant tasks can be delegated, not urgent and unimportant tasks should be either not done or done quickly and at the end of the day. (For example, that pile of “junk mail” you’ve been meaning to sort through? Chances are, that task would be categorized in the last quadrant!)

This matrix has helped thousands of people from busy moms to top executives manage their tasks in a way that keeps their lives and businesses focused and on track. 

As you look at your own to-do list for your facilities and begin to mentally categorize each task, chances are that over the past several months, there have been a lot of urgent and important tasks. Many of these tasks are undoubtedly associated with the “pivoting” required of your organization to account for the COVID-19 pandemic. This is absolutely essential but therein lies a twofold risk: 1) that you will feel burnout from always only tackling the “fires” and 2) that not urgent and important tasks will be neglected, possibly to the detriment of your facilities.

Take a look, for a moment, at the tasks that fall in that important and not urgent category. Coronavirus isn’t going away anytime soon, which means it’s time to begin scheduling those tasks! Sonlight Cleaning Services is here to remind you that tackling the important and not urgent task of intensive floor care isn’t quite so daunting as you might think. In fact, completing the task of deep-cleaning carpets or stripping and waxing floors is as simple as picking up the phone! When you give us a call, we’ll help you pick a date and time to complete this important step in your regular floor care routine (one that may have been neglected over the past few months). Quite timely, actually, the holiday season can be the best time to strip and wax hard floors or perform carpet maintenance because foot traffic patterns tend to look a bit different at this time of year. 

Sonlight Cleaning Services is a full service cleaning company, meaning we’ve got all your needs covered. From daily janitorial cleaning and disinfecting (urgent and important) to bi-weekly, monthly, or annual floor care (not urgent and important), Sonlight Cleaning Services is here to help you make tasks on your to-do list disappear!