| Michael Hudson, Ph.D., known as The Everyday Leadership Authority(tm), is the
founder and principal of the Everyday Leadership Network--an organization
devoted to developing leaders of growing businesses, non-profits, and government
agencies. Visit
EverydayLeader.com for information about Michael's keynotes, seminars, and
workshops, and to sign up for his biweekly ezine, The Everyday Leader! |
The
holidays are quickly fading into memory and the New Year is now in
full swing. No doubt you have returned to your disheveled workspace
and your daily routine. Perhaps you've even tackled that resolution
you made about getting organized and cleaning off your desk.
But wait. Did you do it again this
year? Did you create the list?
You know the list I mean. That list
you created in the midst of your year-end/new year clean-up effort.
The list that includes all those things that you intended to get
done in 2003 but did not, AND all those things you are firmly
committed to for 2004. The list that has the nice check boxes and
the specific deadlines for completion for every item. Yes, that
list.
Don't get me wrong. Creating the list
was a very good idea and merits a round of applause. You invested
your time wisely and assembled all the carryover items in one place,
while defining a clear plan for the year ahead. But you cannot
afford to stop there.
Realize that when you created the
list you implicitly committed yourself to do more in 2004. Think
about it. Not only are you committing to do the things you planned
for 2004, but you are also carrying over all of the things you did
not finish last year. And chances are, if you are like most people,
the list is already too long to be accomplished in a single year,
and we are not even half-way through the first month!
But that is not inherently bad. There
is great value in setting ambitious goals that will stretch you and
make you grow. Here is the problem: There are likely to be many
things on your list that simply do not belong. Here's why.
Some of the items you carried over
from last year would merit your effort--if that effort had been
given last year. Now they are merely things you feel obligated to do
because they are on your list. But in the context of what really
matters in 2004, they do not justify any additional effort.
Other items on the list are no longer
relevant. Allocating your time and energy to them will at best make
you feel good because you followed through and will at worst make
you look bad because it took you so long to get them done. If you
were to abandon them completely and never touch them again, almost
no one would notice (and you would rest better because they would be
out of your sight and your mind!).
You get the point. A list of
carryover to do items and new to do items for the year ahead is an
important first step that many of us take each year as part of our
fresh start. But if we stop there and begin to tackle all of the
items on the list, we doom ourselves to repeat the process again in
12 months.
Here's a better solution for the
everyday leader.
1. If you have not already done so,
create your composite list. Include everything that you planned to
do in 2003 that was not completed, along with all the things you
plan to do in 2004.
2. Examine your list carefully and
rate each item either:
Urgent--it needs to be completed
within the next 60 days;
Not-Urgent--it needs to be completed
within the next 9-12 months;
Not-Yours--it needs to be completed
but not by you; or
Not-Important--it does not really
need to be done at all.
3. Delete all of the items you ranked
Not-Important from the list--only a fool would allocate energy to
doing things that are not important!
4. Create two lists from the
remaining items:
YOUR LIST: Includes all of the Urgent
and Not-Urgent items from step 2 sorted by their Urgent/Not-Urgent
ratings; and
THEIR LIST: Includes all of the
Not-Yours items from step 2.
NOTE: If you are self-employed or do
not have direct reports, you may find this step a bit awkward at
first. But chances are there are items on your list that you cannot
and should not do, and they need to be passed along to those who can
and should do them.
5. Review THEIR LIST and assign the
tasks to the relevant people, i.e., the people who are going to be
responsible for their accomplishment. You might assign some items to
your administrative assistant, others to your direct reports, and
others to vendors and suppliers with whom you can outsource the
task. The objective is to develop a clear alignment of
responsibilities for these items so that you can monitor their
completion rather than doing them yourself.
6. Review YOUR LIST and prioritize
the items in terms of when they need to be completed; keep the
ratings in place for Urgent versus Not-Urgent, as you will use them
again in steps 7 & 8.
7. Using YOUR PRIORITIZED LIST and
your calendar, schedule appointments with yourself to work on all of
the Not-Urgent items on the list so that they will be completed at
least 3-4 weeks prior to their due date. Let nothing interfere with
these appointments with yourself and commit to getting these things
done in advance so they do not become urgent items like the others
on the list.
8. Review the urgent items on YOUR
PRIORITIZED LIST to:
Eliminate the ones you can, i.e. the
ones that will not have an adverse impact if they are never
completed. This will not be an easy task, but there are probably
some things on the list that can be dropped, so take them off. Be
brutally honest here and eliminate as many of the items as you can.
Defer those that are not really
urgent. There are often items on your list that seem urgent because
you have been wanting to get them done for a long time and have not,
but they really are not all that urgent. Defer these items by
re-rating them as Not- Urgent and scheduling them at a future date.
Delegate anything and everything that
can be passed along to someone who can do it at least 75 percent as
well as you can. Even if you have no direct reports, there are ways
to move items to others for completion. Outsourcing to temps or
vendors and passing opportunity oriented items on to up and coming
colleagues are two quick strategies that work. Be sure to add these
items to THEIR FINAL LIST as they are now items that you have moved
into the Not-Yours category.
9. At this point you have two lists:
YOUR FINAL PRIORITIZED LIST which
includes the urgent items that you are going to do in the next 60
days and the not-urgent items that you have scheduled throughout the
year, and
THEIR FINAL LIST which includes the
items you have passed along to others and are now merely monitoring.
Combine these to create YOUR 2004 TO
DO LIST by adding THEIR FINAL LIST as an item on YOUR FINAL
PRIORITIZED LIST.
10. Focus your energies in 2004 on
completing the things on YOUR 2004 TO DO LIST, adding items as
appropriate using the ratings screen from step 2 to determine what
to add and what not to add and being very assertive about not
putting things on your list that can be done equally well by someone
else.
There you have it. A simple 10-step
process for making sense of that lengthy list that emerged during
your yearend/new year clean-up process. If you do this effectively,
your productivity will improve significantly during the year ahead
as your stress level is reduced by working on things before they are
due. Best of all, when the end of the year rolls around, there will
be fewer carryover items for next year's list!
--End--
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