Search “abcde method time management” and you get the same five bullet points everywhere: A is must-do, B is should-do, C is nice-to-do, D is delegate, E is eliminate. Brian Tracy wrote that list decades ago and most of the internet has been copying it since, usually without the one rule that makes the method work: you are not allowed to touch a B task while an A task sits unfinished.
This guide keeps the five letters but adds what the explainer pages skip: a worked list of nine real tasks sorted start to finish, a way to break a tie when two things both look like an A, and a plain comparison with the Eisenhower Matrix so you know which one to reach for on a given morning.
What each letter means (and the rule everyone skips)
The ABCDE method sorts a single day’s task list by consequence, not by how loud a task is. Brian Tracy, who has taught the method for decades, grades every item from A to E before anyone starts working.
- A: must do. Something with a real, bad consequence if you skip it. If you have more than one, rank them by severity: A-1, A-2, A-3.
- B: should do. A mild consequence if ignored, like returning a non-urgent call or clearing a backlog of email. The rule that gets ignored on most lists: never touch a B task while an A task is still open.
- C: nice to do. Zero consequence either way, like calling a friend during the workday. The same rule applies one level down: no C work while a B or A task is waiting.
- D: delegate. Anything someone else can do about as well as you, freeing your time for the A list.
- E: eliminate. It was useful once. It is not useful now. Cross it off instead of carrying it to tomorrow.
The letters are easy. The discipline is not. Most people grade their list correctly and then start the day on a B task anyway, because B tasks are shorter and finishing one feels like progress. The method only works if A-1 goes first regardless of how it feels.
How to run it in 10 minutes
This is a daily habit, not a one-time project. Run it first thing in the morning or the night before, on paper or in whatever list tool you already use.
- Write every open task on one list. Pull from your inbox, your notes, and whatever is already half-done. Nothing gets started until it is on the list.
- Grade each item A through E. Do not overthink it. A gut call on consequence takes seconds; a debate takes ten minutes you do not have.
- Split ties with numbers. Two A tasks become A-1 and A-2 based on which one costs more if it slips another day.
- Start A-1 and stay on it. No checking email, no quick B task first. Finish it, then move to A-2.
- Add new work to the bottom of the list, not straight to the top. A task that lands on your desk at 11am gets graded like everything else before it jumps the queue.
A worked example: nine tasks sorted into five letters
Here is what a real morning looks like once it is graded. These are the kinds of tasks that show up on an ordinary Tuesday for a small team, not a hypothetical.
| Task | Letter | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Send the signed proposal to the client deciding this week | A-1 | Real revenue, and the client picks a vendor by Friday. |
| Fix the checkout bug three customers reported in the last hour | A-2 | Active revenue loss every hour it stays broken. |
| Return a call about next month’s vendor contract renewal | B | Matters, but nothing breaks if it waits until tomorrow. |
| Review and approve the blog post draft due Friday | B | A real deadline, just not today’s deadline. |
| Reorganize the shared drive folders | C | Nobody has complained about the folders in a year. |
| Grab coffee with a former colleague in town for the week | C | Worth doing, costs nothing if skipped. |
| Format last week’s sales numbers into the weekly report | D | Anyone on the team can pull the same numbers into the template. |
| Book the team’s flights for next month’s trade show | D | An assistant or office manager can book from the same travel policy. |
| Rewrite the landing page headline for the fourth time this month | E | Three rewrites already shipped with no measurable change. Stop. |
Nine tasks, two of them real A work, and the other seven never needed to compete for the morning’s attention in the first place. That gap is usually the whole problem: a list with two true priorities feels like a list with nine, until it is graded.
Breaking a tie between two A tasks
Most days hand you more than one task that looks like a must-do. The checkout bug and the client proposal above both qualify. Breaking the tie on gut feeling tends to reward whichever task feels more urgent in the moment, which is usually the one that interrupted you most recently rather than the one with the worse consequence.
A cleaner tie-breaker: ask what happens if each task slips by exactly 24 hours, in dollars or in a relationship you cannot repair later. The proposal slipping a day might cost nothing if the client’s real deadline is Friday. The checkout bug slipping a day costs a measurable number of lost sales. That makes the bug A-1 and the proposal A-2, even though the proposal is the bigger number on paper. If you cannot tell which task is actually losing you time or money versus which one is just loud, a short time audit for a week will usually show you the pattern before the next tie shows up.
ABCDE versus the Eisenhower Matrix: when to use each
Both methods sort tasks by consequence instead of by deadline, which is why people mix them up. They solve different problems. The Eisenhower Matrix sorts a whole week or project into four quadrants and is built to answer a planning question: what should I stop scheduling altogether. The Eisenhower Matrix is the better tool when you are deciding what belongs on next week’s calendar at all.
ABCDE sorts a single day’s list into an order and answers an execution question: what do I touch first this morning. It assumes the list is already real work worth doing and just needs a sequence. Plenty of founders run both: Eisenhower on Monday to set the week, ABCDE every morning to decide what happens before lunch. If your week keeps dissolving into the same five-letter grading exercise with no bigger plan behind it, that is usually a sign the underlying system needs more than a daily list; our time management system for founders covers the four levels that sit above a single day’s priorities.
Mistakes that turn the list into busywork
- Grading everything an A. If six items are A, the grading did nothing. Force a real A-1 and A-2 instead of letting everything tie.
- Starting with a B task because it is shorter. A quick win on a B task still leaves the A task undone an hour later. The clock does not care which task felt easier.
- Re-grading the list every hour. Grade once in the morning, then work the order. Constant re-grading is just procrastination wearing a system’s clothes.
- Letting C tasks pile up instead of deleting them. A C task that survives three straight lists without ever getting done is really an E task you have not admitted to yet.
- Treating D as “someone else’s problem forever.” Delegate means handing it off with enough context that it actually gets done, not dropping it and hoping.
Frequently asked questions
What is the ABCDE method for time management?
It is a daily task sorting method popularized by Brian Tracy. Every task on a list gets a letter from A to E based on consequence: A for must do, B for should do, C for nice to do, D for delegate, and E for eliminate. The list is then worked in that order, starting with the most severe A task.
Who created the ABCDE method?
Productivity author Brian Tracy has taught the ABCDE method for years and describes it in his own writing as a technique he has used throughout his career. He calls A tasks the frogs of your day, since the method asks you to do the worst one first instead of saving it for later.
How is the ABCDE method different from the Eisenhower Matrix?
The Eisenhower Matrix sorts a wider set of commitments into four quadrants to decide what belongs on the calendar at all. ABCDE assumes the list is already real work and simply puts it in the order you should tackle it today. Many founders use the matrix weekly and the letters daily.
What happens to C tasks that never get done?
Nothing happens, by definition. A true C task has zero consequence whether it gets done or not. If a C task starts to feel urgent after sitting on three straight lists, it was graded wrong the first time and probably belongs in B or E instead.
How often should the list get re-graded?
Once a day, usually first thing in the morning or the night before. Re-grading mid-morning every time a new request lands just turns the method into another form of reacting to whoever asked most recently, which is the exact habit the letters are meant to break.
The bottom line
The five letters are not the hard part; anyone can grade a list in four minutes. The hard part is starting on the ugliest A task while three easier B and C items sit right there, begging to go first. If your list is graded correctly and you still cannot get to the A work because requests arrive faster than you can process them, that is a tooling gap more than a willpower gap, and our business management software guide walks through what actually fixes that.
