Prioritize Money Goals with This Free Decision-Making Tool
What you need to know:
Competing money decisions can make everything feel urgent—even when they’re not.
Use the Eisenhower Matrix to sort tasks by urgency and importance.
Delegating tasks, whether to a person or an automation tool, can reduce financial decision-making stress.
Why Everything Feels Like a 5-Alarm Fire
Does every financial task on your to-do list feel urgent? It’s common for people to struggle with prioritization because finances touch so many aspects of our lives—debt, savings, investments, bills, and unexpected expenses.
When everything feels like it needs your attention at once, decision fatigue sets in. Instead of confidently tackling financial tasks, you might find yourself avoiding them altogether. This is why having a system to organize financial decisions is crucial—it helps separate what truly needs your immediate attention from what can wait.
I was recently reminded of this firsthand after coming back from a vacation. When I returned to my office, my inbox was overflowing, my calendar was completely booked, and I felt stuck—frozen by not knowing what to tackle first.
The stress built up, making it even harder to get started. I knew I needed a system to prioritize my tasks, or I’d do nothing at all.
That’s when I turned to the Eisenhower Matrix.
The Eisenhower Matrix: What it is & How It Works
The Eisenhower Matrix is a straightforward decision-making tool that categorizes tasks based on importance and urgency. It’s named after Dwight D. Eisenhower, the 34th President of the United States, who said:
"I have two kinds of problems: the urgent and the important."
This framework has been widely used in productivity and business strategy, but it’s just as useful for personal finance decision-making.
This is what the free tool, the Eisenhower Matrix, looks like:
Do Now
Important and urgent, these are tasks that need your immediate attention.
Example: Paying a credit card bill before interest racks up, enrolling in a workplace retirement plan before the deadline.
Do Later
Important but not urgent, these tasks that matter but can be planned for the future.
Example: Saving for an emergency fund, setting up a sinking fund for home repairs.
Delegate
Urgent but not important for you personally to do, these tasks have a deadline but don’t require you specifically to do them. AKA, another person, skillset, or tool can do them.
Example: Automating bill payments, asking a partner to handle a financial admin task.
Delete
Not Urgent and not important are tasks that aren’t worth your mental energy. Often, these are tasks you put on your to-do list that shouldn’t have been there in the first place, or aren’t relevant to your lifestyle.
Example: Over-researching minor money decisions. Continuing to pay for a subscription you rarely use.
How to Use A Free Worksheet for Prioritizing Your Money Goals
This is officially the easiest worksheet ever since any scrap of paper can become an Eisenhower Matrix and your new favorite financial decision-making tool.
Step 1: Write down all of your financial tasks. Get them out of your head and onto paper (or your Notes app).
Step 2: Draw two intersecting lines, creating four quadrants. Label them:
Do Now (Urgent + Important)
Do Later (Not Urgent, but Important)
Delegate (Urgent, but Not Important for you personally to do)
Delete (Not Urgent, Not Important)
Step 3: Sort your financial tasks into these categories.
Step 4: For now, focus only on the tasks in the “Do Now” category.
Bonus Step (if you have a few extra minutes):
Add deadlines for anything in the “Do Later” category.
Pass off or find ways to automate tasks in “Delegate.”
Delete the things in… well, the “Delete” category.
Free Tool In Action
Do you learn best by example? Same! Let’s say you’re in your early 30s with a list of financial to-dos rattling around in your brain.
Your list of money decisions might look something like this:
Save up 1-month of expenses for an emergency fund.
Resend a $300 Venmo or Cash App request to a friend from a trip.
Pay off a $137.50 credit card balance with high interest.
Enroll in your workplace retirement plan before the month’s end to get a 2% match.
Update your resume with your new promotion.
Renew your gym membership (even though you rarely go).
Step 1: Write Financial Tasks Down
To make better financial decisions, first, get all these tasks out of your head and onto paper (or a notes app). The simple act of externalizing them can reduce the feeling of being overwhelmed.
Psychologically, this process (sometimes called a “brainstorm” or a “brain dump”) helps because our brains are limited to holding and processing information at once—often referred to as cognitive load. When you write things down, you free up mental space, making it easier to think critically and reduce anxiety. Slowing down and thinking clearly and critically is key to making better financial decisions.
Step 2: Sort Financial TaskS Categories
Do Now (Important + Urgent)
Remind your friend about the $300 Venmo request (so you can use that money to pay off your high-interest debt).
Pay off the $137.50 credit card balance ASAP to stop accruing interest.
Do Later (Important but Not Urgent)
Enroll in your workplace retirement plan before the month’s end to get a 2% match.
Plan a time to update your resume within the next month.
Delegate (Urgent but Not Important for you to personally do)
Set up an automatic transfer of $150 from each paycheck into your emergency fund.
Delete (Not Urgent & Not Important)
Let go of the gym membership—you don’t use it anyway and now have less money flowing out to something that isn’t bringing you value.
Suddenly, instead of a chaotic list, you have a clear action plan with only two urgent priorities for today.
After finishing the tasks in the “Do Now” category, you can add due dates for financial tasks in the “Do Later” category, pass off or find ways to automate tasks in “Delegate,” and delete the things in… well, the “Delete” category.
Expanding on the “Delegate” category, you don’t necessarily have to delegate financial tasks to someone else. While sometimes that’s an option, such as hiring an insurance broker to check the best auto insurance rates for you, it isn’t always realistic. That’s why I think about automation and other fintech tools as our little supportive robots. These include things like setting up autopay for fixed monthly expenses so you never have to worry about missing a payment. Other Fintech tools include setting up an automatic transfer to move money from checking into savings or turning on a round-up feature that rounds up purchases to the nearest dollar and puts that extra change into savings.
How Much Emergency Fund Do You Really Need?
Traditional financial advice says you need 3–6 months of living expenses saved for emergencies. While that’s a great money goal if you have the capability to do so, research shows that having $2,467 available–or about one month of household expenses–significantly reduces financial hardship risk for most households.
Instead of fixating on a big, daunting number like “6 months of expenses,” start by aiming for $2,500. Once you hit that, you can decide whether you want to build it further. For more on the easy benchmark for emergency savings funds, read the full blog post here.
Other Money Moves to Consider
Beyond emergency savings and debt repayment, there are other financial priorities you may want to focus on, depending on your situation:
High-interest debt (7% or more) is a priority. Paying down debt with high interest (like credit cards) is crucial because it compounds quickly and can make getting out of debt challenging.
Sinking funds can prevent financial stress. A sinking fund is a savings account for predictable but irregular expenses, like car maintenance or holiday gifts. This keeps you from dipping into your emergency savings for non-emergencies. Personally, I automate a bit of money to move monthly from my checking account into various sinking funds or savings accounts. Learn more about my money routine in this blog here.
Retirement investing. Saving for your future doesn’t have to be all-or-nothing. If your workplace offers a retirement match, at least contribute enough to get the free money. You can always increase contributions later.
Short-term savings. Saving up for fun and rewarding short-term goals matters too. Want to take a trip? Buy new furniture? Plan for these goals alongside your other financial priorities.
Financial Decision-Making Without the Overwhelm
Personal finance is exactly that—personal. There’s no one-size-fits-all formula for what you should prioritize. Using a tool like the Eisenhower Matrix helps clear the noise and focus on what truly matters to you right now.
If you’re looking for more actionable and tailored financial wellness advice, consider bringing me in to facilitate a workshop for your company or organization. I help teams navigate financial decision-making in a way that feels approachable, achievable, and shame-free. Let’s make financial wellness work for you—reach out today to book an interactive financial wellness workshop!