Live by the list, die by the list
September 4th, 2008 by ReinderI am disorganised, and this is hurting me at my job, at a time when I feel very strongly that I need to maximise my career and perform as well as I possibly can. I have tried to get more organised by keeping lists, but today, I ran into the limit of what lists can do for a person, hard.
And I was actually quite satisfied with my progress over the past few weeks. This morning, for the first time in weeks, I had enough peace of mind to sit down at the start of the work day and spend half an hour doing nothing but plan: write up my early-morning list (one of two - the other is the end-of day list which is a memo of things that need to be done the next day, in a rough order of priority. By the time morning has arrived, new urgent work to be delivered the same day has usually arrived in my mailbox and that planning has to be revised, but at least I have a starting point for the next day ready before I leave the office), prioritise in some detail based on how best to prevent surprised and then talk to people about that. I was doing well.
Right until a client e-mailed me about a job that was due yesterday that I'd forgotten about completely.
And that's where lists reach their limit: if you live by the list, you will die by the list. Because I rely on my lists so much, and because one of the ways I use them is to jot things down to enter into the company Intranet later so I won't have to drop everything I'm doing and lose my place in my ongoing work, what isn't on the list doesn't exist. As a result, a job that would normally take a day to do but would have been completed easily if I'd started on time just disappeared from my planning. Needless to say, I'm very frustrated with this, and a bit despairing about what I should do to prevent this. It needs to be solved otherwise I can't perform well at my job; but I can't go back to dropping whatever I can to prepare and administer incoming projects, because in the work environment I'm in, I wouldn't get anything done.
I don't have a solution yet. Sites like The Simple Dollar have endless lifehacking recommendations. That site particularly recommends the book Getting Things Done but implementing some of the solutions in that takes a time investment upfront that I simply don't see myself having in an environment where half an hour of idle time is a rarity, and as for implementing the most important step of that, listing everything, I've just demonstrated the risks inherent in that approach.
What do you do to keep track of things? Please let me know in comments. If you're a fan of the comics I make, your solution just might help me to spend less time in the office and to come home with more energy left to work on them. I did get the project back on track with the help of some of my co-workers and a new deadline, but at a cost of me coming home much, much later than planned, putting in overtime which I'm not going to get paid for.
Tags: Lifehacking, lists, organisation
September 5th, 2008 at 4:29 am
I have a similar situation at work, where I just don’t have the time to address things as they come in. To keep from losing tasks, I use a combination of written lists and email-flagging. We use MS Outlook at work, but I would imagine that most email clients have some way to mark individual messages.
I use red flags to mark emails that I have to do something about, and I review my red-flagged emails once or twice per day. When I complete whatever task is associated with an email, I clear the flag.
I also flag emails that contain non-task-oriented information that I’ll need later. If I need a particular server name, it’s a lot easier to look through a dozen or so green-flagged emails than to slog through my entire inbox.
September 5th, 2008 at 7:56 am
Thank you Megan. I do a bit of e-mail flagging and may benefit from doing it more systematically. However, it wouldn’t have worked in this case, because I wouldn’t have seen the flat. I am the kind of person who lets messages pile up in his inbox, so to compensate for that, I filter all incoming messages at the source. This one ended up in a nested folder (client -> project -> message), effectively hiding it. Some other client requests go so far down the list that they’re below the fold in my email window, but those fortunately offer so much volume that I have no choice but to check regularly. I may switch off automatic sorting if necessary. I use Thunderbird at work as part of a policy to only use Microsoft software if I can’t avoid it and to preferentially use software that I can also use on my home systems (a linux box and an iBook). This may be such a situation – if Outlook helps me keep mail visible, I may have to bite the bullet and switch to it.
September 5th, 2008 at 1:14 pm
It may sound a little harsh, but I think you’re overreacting a bit. You missed one important job due to it not being on the list. That doesn’t mean the list doesn’t work, it just means that you’ve got to be more careful, directly adding things to the list when they pop up. That way, the list stays up-to-date.
As for e-mails containing information like dates and adresses, I jot that information down in my agenda, then delete the e-mail. This might not work for e-mails containing detailed assignments, because you’ll want to preserve the exact wordings. But maybe I should keep my trap shut, because I suffer from the same disorganizational problems.
January 11th, 2009 at 1:31 am
I agree with Michiel: don’t get upset over a single mistake. And it’s just work, too. And what kind of job do you do that apart from the actual work you also need to have a detailed administration of things to do? Sounds to me like either your employer should hire a planner, or you’re the only one who cannot keep up. If the former, talk to your employer, if the latter, talk to your colleagues and see how they handle things.
January 11th, 2009 at 1:32 am
Oh, btw, I use lists too. The trick is to handle contingencies.