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.
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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 last year but did not, AND all those things you
are firmly committed to for the next year. 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 can not afford to stop there.
Realize that when you created the list you implicitly committed yourself
to do more in the next year. Think about it. Not only are you committing to do the
things you planned for next year, 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 next year, 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 last year that was not completed, along with
all the things you plan to do next year.
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.
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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 NEXT YEAR TO DO LIST by adding THEIR FINAL LIST
as an item on YOUR FINAL PRIORITIZED LIST.
10. Focus your energies next year on completing the things on YOUR
NEXT YEAR 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!
About the Author:
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
http://www.EverydayLeader.com
for information about Michael's keynotes, seminars, and workshops, and to
sign up for his bi-weekly ezine, The Everyday Leader!
January 26, 2004
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