Matrix
The Matrix surface is the Eisenhower reading of the same work items the board and the list show: four quadrants, plus two panels for the items that are not in a quadrant.
The quadrant is derived, never stored
There is no quadrant field on a work item. A quadrant is computed, every time, from two things only: whether the item is completed, and what priority it carries.
Dates never participate. An item scheduled for tomorrow is not "urgent" here. Urgency is the priority you set, and nothing else — the matrix does not read an item's schedule at all.
The lanes
| Lane | Heading | Rule | Derived from |
|---|---|---|---|
| DO | Do first | Urgent and important | Priority p1 |
| SCHEDULE | Schedule | Important, not urgent | Priority p2 |
| DELEGATE | Delegate | Urgent, not important | Priority p3 |
| DELETE | Eliminate | Wasteful distractions | Priority p4 |
| INBOX | Inbox | Unprioritised | No priority set |
| ARCHIVE | Archive | Completed | Status completed |
Completion wins: a completed item is in Archive whatever its priority. An item whose priority value this build does not recognise reads as unprioritised rather than being filed under a guess.
What a move writes
Dropping a card into a lane writes the fields that lane implies — and nothing else.
| Drop target | What is written |
|---|---|
| Do first | Priority p1. A completed item is reopened to pending. |
| Schedule | Priority p2. A completed item is reopened to pending. |
| Delegate | Priority p3. A completed item is reopened to pending. |
| Eliminate | Priority p4. A completed item is reopened to pending. |
| Inbox | The priority is cleared. A completed item is reopened to pending. |
| Archive | The item is completed. Its priority is left alone. |
A drop onto the lane a card already occupies writes nothing at all, so it bumps no revision and looks like no edit to anything reading the row later.
Reordering inside a lane is a different write: it sets the moved card's rank among its siblings in that lane, and never touches priority. A reorder that would produce the order the lane already has writes nothing.
Note that the Delegate lane is a priority band, not an action. Actually handing an item to an agent is the Delegate to… menu on the card — see Delegation.
What the cards show
A matrix card shows what the store actually holds per item: its title, its priority and whether it is complete. There are deliberately no impact, effort, score, tag or estimate figures on it — no such records exist locally, so those fields would render the same value for every card and read as data while being decoration.
Where to go next
- Work Items — what priority means and why
p1is highest. - Boards — the other reading, where columns are yours to name.
- Projects — narrowing the matrix to one project.