If you're an early-stage founder, you’re likely drowning in tasks. Product features, website updates, outreach campaigns—the to-do list never ends. You wake up, see the mountain of work in front of you, and think: Where do I even start?
Here’s the truth: Most of those tasks won’t move the needle for your business. The problem? You're stuck in the grind, tackling what feels urgent instead of what drives growth. You’re constantly busy, but you’re not getting anywhere.
The solution? The Leverage-Impact Matrix.
This tool will help you identify the work that delivers the highest returns with the least effort. It’s not just about getting things done—it’s about getting the right things done to scale your business quickly. Let’s dive into how it works.
Let me take you back to the 1950s. Dwight D. Eisenhower, then U.S. President and WWII General, had more decisions to make in a day than most of us handle in a week. To prioritize his time, he developed what became known as the Eisenhower Matrix—a tool that helped him decide what to do based on urgency and importance.
It worked for him, and it made sense in that context. In a world where immediate, high-stakes decisions—like military operations—were critical, he needed a framework that kept him focused on what was urgent.
But fast forward to 2024, and here’s the issue: Urgency is no longer the most important metric for founders. Today, it’s all about leverage and impact—getting the most results with the least effort.
The Eisenhower Matrix is great for managing operational crises, but it falls short when it comes to building and scaling a business. As founders, we’re not in a wartime situation where every task feels like a crisis. Instead, we’re in a world where we need to focus on long-term growth and high-leverage activities—the tasks that compound over time.
The truth is, just because something is urgent doesn’t mean it’s important. You could spend your day responding to emails, fixing small website tweaks, or handling “urgent” client requests, but none of that drives real growth.
This is why the Eisenhower Matrix fails you as a founder. It’s designed for short-term crisis management, not long-term business scaling.
And that’s where the Leverage-Impact Matrix comes in.
The Leverage-Impact Matrix is a simple but powerful tool that helps you focus on the tasks that will grow your business the fastest. It’s built on two key ideas:
The vertical axis measures impact and the horizontal axis measures leverage. Every task you do can be placed in one of these four quadrants:
High Leverage, High Impact (Quadrant 1): This is where you want to live. These tasks move the needle and provide the highest return for your time. Example: Closing high-ticket clients or automating your lead generation system. Focus on these first.
Low Leverage, High Impact (Quadrant 2): These tasks are still important, but they take up a lot of your time without multiplying your results. Example: Writing personalized cold outreach emails manually. Find ways to systematize or delegate these.
High Leverage, Low Impact (Quadrant 3): These tasks are easy to execute and save time but don’t drive significant growth. Example: Scheduling social media posts with automation tools. Do these sparingly, but don’t let them dominate your day.
Low Leverage, Low Impact (Quadrant 4): Avoid these at all costs. These tasks neither multiply your results nor significantly impact your business. Example: Tweaking your website layout for the 10th time. Eliminate these from your routine.
By focusing on high-leverage, high-impact tasks, you maximize the output from the time you put in. Every action you take compounds toward your business growth, without the constant grind.
Now that you know what the Leverage-Impact Matrix is, let’s talk about how you can use it in your business to cut through the noise and focus on the tasks that actually move the needle.
Here’s a simple, 3-step process to get started:
Start by listing out every task you’ve been thinking about, whether it’s related to client acquisition, content creation, or even administrative work. Don't overthink it—just write everything down.
Example: If you’re like most founders, your list might look like this:
The idea is to clear your mental space so you can see what you're working with.
Now, take each task and plot it based on leverage and impact:
This process forces you to look at your to-do list with a new lens: Is this task actually going to help my business grow, or is it just busywork?
Here’s the golden rule: Spend 80% of your time in Quadrant 1—the tasks that are both high-leverage and high-impact. These are the activities that create real momentum and growth for your business.
Here’s how you should approach each quadrant:
Example: Let’s say you’re planning a cold outreach campaign. Instead of manually writing every email, build a system using automation tools like Clay.com. It’s a high-leverage move because once the system is in place, you’ll be generating leads with minimal effort.
By focusing on tasks that maximize leverage and impact, you’ll start to see faster growth with less overwhelm.
Leverage is what separates high-growth businesses from the ones that stay stuck. If you want to scale quickly without burning out, you need to understand how to get more return from less effort. That’s what leverage is all about.
Think of leverage as a force multiplier. It’s the idea that a small amount of effort can produce a massive result if you apply it in the right way.
Let’s say you spend a few hours building an automated cold outreach system. Once it’s set up, it works 24/7, sending hundreds of emails while you sleep. That’s high leverage. One-time effort, massive, recurring results.
Compare that to manually sending individual emails every day. Sure, the impact might be the same in the short term, but over time, you’ll hit a ceiling because you can’t scale that effort. It’s low leverage—you’re doing all the work yourself, day after day.
The goal is to prioritize tasks that offer the highest return on your time. When you do, you’ll find yourself working less but getting more done.
Another great example is content creation. If you record a 10-minute Loom video sharing valuable insights and post it on YouTube, LinkedIn, and Twitter, that’s leverage. That single piece of content works for you across multiple platforms, reaches new audiences, and builds trust over time.
On the flip side, spending hours tweaking a blog post that only a handful of people will see is low leverage. Sure, it might be high quality, but without distribution, the impact is minimal.
Here are some examples of high-leverage, high-impact tasks you should focus on:
Each of these tasks provides massive returns over time, without requiring you to constantly grind.
Leverage is what allows you to work smarter, not harder. By focusing on tasks that multiply your efforts, you’ll start seeing exponential growth without the burnout.
If you’re a perfectionist, you probably live in Quadrant 2 of the Leverage-Impact Matrix: Low Leverage, High Impact tasks. These are tasks that are important but often eat up way too much of your time. You get stuck tweaking, refining, and overworking them because they feel crucial.
The result? Procrastination. You delay high-leverage tasks (like cold outreach or building systems) in favor of endlessly perfecting that one landing page or blog post.
Here’s the hard truth: Perfectionism is killing your growth.
When you strive for perfection, you set impossible standards. You wait for the “perfect” moment, the “perfect” result, or the “perfect” piece of content. That moment never comes, so you delay. You get overwhelmed, and the important, high-leverage tasks get pushed aside.
The Leverage-Impact Matrix fixes this by forcing you to focus on results over perfection. It’s about getting the most important, high-leverage tasks done, even if they’re not perfect.
Perfectionism thrives when there are no deadlines. You keep tinkering with a task because you haven’t defined when it’s “done.” To combat this, set strict time limits for tasks, especially in Quadrant 2.
Example: If you’re writing a LinkedIn post, give yourself 30 minutes. When the timer goes off, hit “Post,” no matter how imperfect it feels. The goal is progress, not perfection.
The key to defeating procrastination is building momentum. Start with small, high-leverage tasks that are easy to complete. The more you accomplish, the more motivated you’ll be to keep going.
Here’s how it works:
By stacking small wins, you’ll overcome the resistance that causes procrastination. You’ll start seeing progress, and that progress will push you to take on bigger, high-leverage tasks.
Remember this: 80% done is better than 100% perfect. In business, shipping imperfect work quickly often beats polishing something for days. Your clients, prospects, and audience won’t notice the details you obsess over—they care about the value you provide.
Use the Leverage-Impact Matrix to prioritize action over perfection, and you’ll start seeing real results faster.
It’s one thing to talk about theory, but let’s get real—what kind of results can you expect when you start using the Leverage-Impact Matrix?
I’ll show you.
A while back, I was stuck in the grind, constantly juggling tasks that felt important but weren’t moving the needle. I was tweaking my website design, writing detailed blog posts, and replying to every email, thinking it would drive growth.
Spoiler: It didn’t.
What did? Focusing 80% of my time on Quadrant 1: High Leverage, High Impact tasks.
Instead of worrying about the perfect content or pixel-perfect designs, I doubled down on one thing: Client acquisition. I built an automated cold outreach system and scaled my outreach from 30 emails a week to 100 emails a day. The result? In just 30 days, I landed 3 high-ticket clients.
I didn’t perfect my website. I didn’t obsess over a blog post. I focused on the highest-leverage, highest-impact task—and it paid off.
Here’s another example. I used to spend hours writing personalized LinkedIn messages manually. Sure, it was getting some results, but it wasn’t scalable. It was high impact but low leverage.
Once I realized this, I switched gears. I created a templated system that I could automate and tweak for personalization at scale. The result? In less than a week, I doubled my outreach while cutting my workload in half.
Remember, leverage creates a compounding effect. Whether it’s automating your outreach or creating evergreen content that works for you around the clock, the right systems make a difference.
The more you prioritize high-leverage tasks, the more your efforts compound over time, creating exponential growth.
When you stop spinning your wheels on low-leverage tasks and start focusing on what actually drives growth, the results are undeniable:
That’s the power of the Leverage-Impact Matrix—it’s not about doing more, it’s about doing the right things.
Most founders get stuck in the weeds, drowning in tasks that feel urgent but do nothing to drive real growth. They spend hours tweaking, perfecting, and grinding—only to end up exhausted with little to show for it.
But you don’t have to be one of them.
The Leverage-Impact Matrix is your shortcut to scaling faster with less effort. It forces you to focus on the tasks that actually matter—the ones that create the biggest return on your time and energy. It’s about working smarter, not harder.
Here’s your action step:
For the next 7 days, use the Leverage-Impact Matrix to prioritize your tasks. Every morning, brain dump your to-do list, plot each task based on leverage and impact, and focus 80% of your time on Quadrant 1: High Leverage, High Impact tasks.
Don’t overthink it. Set time limits. Ship your work—even if it’s not perfect. And watch how quickly your business starts to grow.
When you’re done, come back and tell me how it worked for you. I guarantee you’ll start seeing results faster than you thought possible.
Remember: 80% done is better than 100% perfect.
Stop wasting time on busywork. Start using the Leverage-Impact Matrix today, and build the business you’ve always wanted.
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