How to prioritize tasks?

It's a nice idea, but I'd like to see some examples of this in practice. One problem I see with this particular system is one of relative scale, in that your x,y,z and a,b,c and p,q,r triples all need to be somewhat-carefully tuned to remain on the same numerical order of magnitude. I wonder if a better system can be constructed that depends more on the relative rankings within each category, and less on absolute quantities.

That said, I've started using another system that a coworker recently introduced me to. He likes to model the total business value of an improvement or cost-savings as a discounted cash flow. You estimate the gain as a cash flow per period, and run that through the standard present-value formulas, either picking a discount rate out of a hat or using a range of discount rates to see how the results vary. You can then compare this to your total estimated cost (e.g. your hourly rate times the expected hours of work) to see if the thing is worth doing.

Do people really have this hard of a time deciding what task to do? If you have something that needs doing urgently, then do that. Otherwise... it just depends? There's no one-size-fits-all solution.

Eisenhower method is all you need.

Decide if something is urgent, and if it is important.

Urgent and important? Do it.

Urgent and not important? Delegate it.

Not urgent and important? Schedule it.

Not urgent and not important? Bin.

Lots of things that are urgent and important? Choose 1 thing. Do it. Then do the next one.

I read 4000 Weeks by Oliver Burkeman recently. TLDR: embrace you don't have time for it all, and if you try and optimise you'll just create more work for yourself. Get rid of as much as you can as a first step.

It definitely doesn't need maths. If it does, you're optimising for the wrong thing.

I've long thought that the single hardest problem in startups is prioritization: figuring out the most important thing to build (or do) next.

I've seen this four quadrant method frequently referenced, most recently I came across it in David Allen's book "Getting Things Done". I don't quite understand the logic behind delegating non-urgent and important work. Two points of confusion:

1) In business, how do I have the authority to delegate when responsibility is frequently defined by the role/organization or I'm at the bottom of the organization?

2) Delegating urgent not important tasks seems like an ineffective use of valuable resources and a recipe for a toxic working relationship. Rather, I would expect someone to delegate not urgent important work so that there is time to deal with the additional cost of handing off work to another person.

What am missing?