“So, Marie, what do you do with the rest of your to-do list?” I asked. We had been talking about her to-do list and her project lists.

“I guess, just work on them. I know I should probably prioritize them,” she responded.

“Well, you have known all along about prioritization. How come you haven’t been doing that?”

“I don’t know. I guess I never get around to it. I just look at the list, and really, I just start working on whatever I think is easiest to get done right then.”

“The reason you don’t prioritize, is that prioritization doesn’t really work for anybody. It’s a time management trap that makes you feel good, but doesn’t get anything done,” I said. I could see Marie give me that mental pushback.

She stared at me. “Everybody says you have to prioritize, but you know, you’re right. I never do it.”

“Let’s do something much more effective. As you review the list, including all your project next-steps, you do one of three things.

Do it right now.

Schedule it on your calendar.

Give it to someone else and schedule a follow-up time.

“Bottom line, if it is on your list, it doesn’t matter what the priority is, it all has to get done sometime.” I knew that was enough for today. “Think about it. I will see you tomorrow. There is still more to this system.” -TF

Marie greeted me in the hallway. “Good news,” she said. “I’ve finished listing the steps for the Phoenix Redesign Project. I was amazed. Seven steps, and I bet I didn’t work for more than one minute. I made more progress in that one minute than I have in the past two months.”

“So, what is the difference between your to-do list and your project list?” I asked.

She looked to the side, as if the answer was written somewhere on the wall. “It’s sort of like going through time, one thing after another, very horizontal. Then, I hit this project. The project list is more vertical. It drills down into the project.”

“You seem more relaxed today than you did yesterday.” I observed.

“I do. I have a better sense of control. I know exactly what needs to be done.”

“And what is the next-step?” I asked.

“That’s easy,” Marie explained. “I just have to pull the budget from a similar project we did 18 months ago. I remember, it contains a narrative description we can modify and all the budget elements are listed with our assumptions. I put this next-step on my schedule this afternoon. With the project list, I can actually work things into my calendar instead of having this dark cloud lurking out there.”

“So, just to summarize what you have learned?” I prodded.

“If you have a project, quickly list out the steps and identify the next-step.”

“Let me see your list?” I asked.

“Okay, but I haven’t really looked at it for a couple of days,” Marie mildly protested. We had been talking about time management. “I mean, I added a couple of things to it this week, but” Her voice trailed off as if she had another reason, but it just wasn’t worth the effort.

“Looking at your list, I see a couple of things. You have some easy single tasks that look like you could just knock off in a few minutes, but you also have some things that look like projects, like this budget you need to do for the Phoenix Redesign.”

Marie looked over my shoulder. “Oh, yeah, in fact, items 3, 6 and 7 are already done, I just didn’t scratch them off. And the Phoenix Redesign, I just can’t seem to get around to it.”

“When is the Phoenix budget due?”

“Well, three days ago, but nobody has asked me for it, so I probably have a couple of more days.” Marie winced as she was telling me.

“Why such a hard time getting started on it?”

“It’s a pretty complicated project. There are probably six or seven steps to it and I need some other people to help me on parts of it.”

“How long has it been on your to-do list?” I asked.

Marie winced again. “At least a couple of months.”

“Okay, I want to change the way we handle your to-do list. We are going to create a project list, called the Phoenix Redesign Project List.

“Your difficulty is not seeing the details of the project, specifically, you don’t know what the next step is. There are six or seven, but you haven’t listed them out and you don’t know what the next one is. That’s why the whole project has moved on your list, undisturbed from week to week for the past two months.

“Here is your assignment. Take the Phoenix Project, list out the six or seven steps and mark the Robust Next Step. Tomorrow, we will see how this works back into your overall to-do list.” -TF

More from the Ask Tom mailbag.

Question

Everyday I get more and more information through reading and talking to people, observation etc. My question is, “How do I organize the information I have identified as useful?”

I currently use an Excel file and filters in the worksheets to do it but is there a better way?

Response

Any tools that help you will work, whether they are spreadsheet tools, database tools, or even searchable documents.

First consideration is to determine if the tool is accessible or part of your daily discipline to record the things you want to remember or have access to later.

Second consideration is the ability to quickly search to find what you are looking for. Even my blog works well for this. It is a series of thoughts, set in categories. I can search a specific category if I am looking for something. Even more powerful is the actual search tool built into the blog that lets me search for a key word or phrase.

Finally, you will find that you use different tools for different things. I keep lists in my Palm Pilot for books I want to buy. That way, when I get to the bookstore, my list is always with me. For ideas that I might want to organize into workshops, I find that PowerPoint is very helpful. For very complex ideas, I actually create websites to help me understand the dependencies and linking between ideas and processes. It helps me understand the logic of ideas and what impact one idea may have on another idea.

One tool that we have found very helpful is a tool called a wiki. You can see how it has been used as a collaborative tool by visiting the following link:

www.wikipedia.org. This actually allows other people to help piece ideas together. -TF

If you would like to ask Tom a question, follow the link to the right.

“Get real,” exclaimed Jonathan. We had been talking about time management, specifically the disciplines of working on one thing at a time until it was completely finished.

Jonathan’s face flushed, “My projects are so big that I can’t drop everything to focus on a single project until it’s finished.”

“I didn’t say you had to finish the whole project, just the one item you are working on.”

“That’s where I run into trouble. Things are so complex, I am not sure where to start, where the most important things are or the next logical thing in the sequence. Sometimes, I stay mixed up for days. And, seriously, I have four or five major projects going at the same time. And they are all different.” Jonathan sighed.

“Here is a simple tool that will help you handle large complex projects and also to isolate individual elements that you may be able to finish in a single sitting. It’s a cross between a mind map and a fishbone diagram. Have you ever played with a mind map?”

“Not really,” replied Jonathan.

“A mind map is a free form diagram made up of circles, triangles, boxes and arrows. I usually start with a circle in the middle of the page and work out from there. In that middle circle, I name the core purpose of the project to help keep me on track. From there I can map out all of the elements, usually in a time sequence with connections to show dependencies between things.

“Have you ever seen a fishbone?” I asked

“Yep, it’s mainly a backbone with a bunch of spines coming off of it,” smiled Jonathan.

“So I can take any element of the mind map, draw a bunch of spines off of it and add as much detail as I think important.

“Your first mind maps are messy, but you get better. The beauty is that you can isolate any element that you have time to work on and understand exactly where it fits in the grand scheme of things. And you can work on that small element until it is completely finished.” -TF

Travis had too many important things hanging at the end of the day. Your responses were helpful and from different angles.

There was a recommendation for a book, Getting Things Done, delegation and identifying “time eaters.”

One insightful idea had to do with segmenting larger projects into smaller pieces. Travis may find it easier to complete small pieces over a couple of days rather than avoiding the large daunting project that looms on his schedule.

Gail gets the book Power of Attitude by Mac Anderson for her explanation of reserving uninterrupted quiet time. As a Manager what impact can you have on your Key Result Areas if you had just one hour of uninterrupted time each week? What if you had two hours each week?

What if you had two hours each day?

Gail has some great ideas. Read her entire response along with the rest of the comments. Good stuff. -TF

Travis looked at me over the rim of his glasses. I had just explained the time management principle of working through a task completely before starting the next task. He was skeptical. “I can’t ever get anything finished before I have to start on the next thing,” he lamented.

“Of course you can’t. The modern American manager gets interrupted every nine minutes. It is not unusual for you to have multiple tasks going on simultaneously. But the principle is still the principle. At the end of the day, how many tasks are still left hanging?”

“Want to know the truth?” Travis continued, assuming that I did. “If I start ten things today, only two will get finished and eight will be left hanging for tomorrow. So, then I will have eight things to start with, plus ten more things tomorrow. Two things will get finished, so I will have sixteen things to carry over to the next day. It’s no wonder I am always behind.”

“So, do you think that no one else has this problem?”

“No, I guess not,” Travis replied.

“Then why do some people get things accomplished while others get mired down and hopelessly behind?”

And that’s the question for today. How do you get things accomplished while others get hopelessly behind? What is your discipline of time management? Best idea gets a signed copy of The Power of Attitude by Mac Anderson. -TF