Work-flow Mastery

Work flow mastery. These are actually three different concepts here (Work, flow and mastery) which conjure up images of success. To be successful, we need to work or receive the fruits of other’s work. Work also needs to flow.

There needs to be a steady stream of actions, which if performed consistently will eventually yield results. Then and only then will mastery result.

The In-To-Empty concept

The first system I want to discuss is the concept of In-To-Empty. The term is probably famous due to David Allen’s Getting Things Done and really means getting your in-tray empty. In other words, sorting through your email inbox or the physical piles of stuff and deciding what to do with them. It could also mean going through your notebook and making sense of the random ideas you’ve had today.
I am not going to go into detail here on this concept, as I believe Mr Allen has done a fine job already. However, I will reiterate a couple of things.
Firstly, getting your in-tray empty, doesn’t actually mean that you are completing everything in your inbox. It simply means deciding what each email means and whether it requires further action. If it does require further action, you can then go ahead and add it to your to-do list(s).
The second thing about the in-to-empty model, is that you should ideally only do it once a day. What? Only check emails once a day? That’s heresy, surely. Well no, I believe it is one of the fundamentals of being successful. In other words, limiting the time you spend checking email, social media and voicemails. This is so that you can concentrate your mental energy on productive tasks. Then, maybe , at the end of the day, you can spend say 30 minutes quickly scanning your email list and sorting them. The other benefit of doing this is that when one of those emails turns up, you know the ones, where your heart sinks, you can just decide – yes I need to action this. So it goes in your to-do list.

Do it tomorrow

The key concept that makes the daily in to empty model work is the do it tomorrow concept. When you process all your in boxes, unless you can complete an item immediately, you mark it on your to do list to do tomorrow. It is such a relief to go through your email inbox, knowing you don’t need to reply to that ‘War and Peace’ request from your line manager.

Properly wording your tasks.

Now that you are processing your in box and filling your to-do list, the next thing to master is actually wording the tasks, so that when you come to reading it later, it not only means something, but you are also more likely to complete it.
The simple rule is that a properly worded task should have a verb, an object and a subject.

For instance – Ring Bob to chase up the report.

Ring (verb) Bob (object) Report (subject).

Now its quite alright when you make a note in your note pad such as “sort office out”. You know what this means when you write it, however, it’s not acceptable to write this on your to-do list. Coming across “sort office out” on your to-do list is a guarantee for you to procrastinate.
If you have followed David Allen’s GTD system , as you process this item, you might decide that this is actually a project. Your properly worded action for your to-do list could be “Plan out (verb) a project (object) to organise the office (subject).”
The key is to have all three elements and for the verb to be as simple as possible e.g. Ring, email, plan etc.

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Scheduling

If prioritising is deciding what to do, then scheduling is deciding when to do it. Planning to fail is failing to plan, as the old saying goes. One of my first Sales Managers indoctrinated me into the world of planning. The reason is that once Monday morning arrives, you are already into your week. You will be pulled in all directions unless you have a plan of what to do and when to do it. This is where scheduling comes in.

The Calendar or Diary

I am assuming that if you have a career or are in business, you will be making use of a calendar or diary to record your appointments. So it is not really important what format this is in; it is more important that you use it correctly.

The first principle in the use of a calendar or diary is that whatever you record in it, is a commitment to yourself that it will take place. The calendar is not the place to record your to do list, or reminders for things that spring to mind. It should also not be a place for things that might get done. If you are not sure if something will get done, avoid putting it into your calendar.

Ideally you will have different views in your calendar; this is why I now use the calendar in Gmail. I only have to add an entry once and it shows in all views. I can view my calendar by day, week or month. You will see later how this is useful. So what should you be putting into your calendar?

Appointments

Any appointment or meetings you are committed to attending, by time.

Time bound tasks

Record any task that has to be completed at a certain time on a certain day. This is not the same as a task that has a deadline, but could be completed at any time. For tasks like this, I would add these to your single action list or project list (if it’s part of a project). You could also include tasks that need to be done on a particular day, but at any time.

Recurring tasks and appointments

Add any recurring tasks that need to be done. Your daily review meeting should go in, as it needs to be done every day; likewise your weekly review. These are two commitments you are keeping with yourself, so I would treat these like an appointment with your boss!

Regular daily routines

Now you may not want to fill your calendar with such mundane things as meals and travel times and I can understand that. However, as we will see later when you start scheduling, it is important to block off the time that is otherwise being filled by everyday stuff.

In Google calendars, you can have a separate calendar called the Unschedule, which can be merged into one view. You can switch on/off the calendars, which means that when you are planning your time, you have a clearer picture of what is actually available.

Once you have planned your time, you can switch off the Unschedule, to view only your main calendar. I got the name Unschedule from Neil A. Fiore’s Now Habit, a great book about how to stop procrastinating and make a start on your projects.

Don’t overfill your calendar. It’s better to have less in your calendar and get into the completion habit, rather than overfill and be disappointed in your failure to complete.

The Weekly Schedule

Now that you know what you should be putting into your calendar, it’s time to get down to scheduling. At your end of week review you will set aside some time to plan your upcoming week. Here you would look at the Week View in your calendar to give you an overview of your week.

If you use the Google Unschedule calendar, this will show you where you might have overcommitted yourself. Make sure you are leaving time for meals and travel. Also make sure you have left time for preparing and debriefing meetings. Have you left enough time for exercise, family time or “me time”. If not put it into your unscheduled calendar. Once you have done this, you might be surprised at how little time you actually have left to work on your goals and projects. Now is the time to make some adjustments.

Weekly Goals

Look at your weekly goals. With your free time available, do you really have enough time to achieve what you want? If not you have two options – downgrade your expectations or remove something from your calendar. This means saying no to somethings that are not moving you towards your vision of the future.

Can you forgo an hour’s worth of TV, to go to bed an hour earlier? You could get yourself up earlier the next day and use this time productively. By the way an hour in the morning is worth two in the afternoon.
Once you are happy with your weekly schedule and goals list, it’s time to get back to the here and now.

The Daily Schedule

“Our main business is not to see what lies dimly at a distance, but to do what lies clearly at hand.” – Thomas Carlyle.

Dale Carnegie in is timeless classic How To Stop Worrying And Start Living tells us the story of Sir William Osler who cures his stress by living in day tight compartments. Just like an ocean liner whose hull is separated into watertight compartments; if one such unit is punctured, the ship should not sink because the others will be intact. In the same way, living in day tight units means that you only concentrate on today. Yesterday is gone and tomorrow is tomorrow’s problem.

If you have done your weekly scheduling properly, whatever turns up in your calendar today was totally planned for. What this concept means is that you have certain things you plan to achieve in a day and you will also have stuff happen. As you can only deal with what is in front of you, it is important to focus just on today. This is the art of working effectively.
As we discussed in the prioritising section , each evening you will plan out what your most important tasks are. Now you can assess your daily schedule, which will already include your appointments and any recurring tasks and appointments.

Daily Calendar Print Off

As I said before, my schedule lives in Gmail, so it automatically syncs across all my devices. Everyday, however, I print off my day view calendar. This is where I write in my most important tasks, preferably as early in the day as possible. This daily calendar print off is the document that runs my life. It details everything I am committed to achieving, doing or attending that day. There is nothing tentative in here and I will do my damnedest to finish everything on it. Once the day is complete, I file that day’s sheet, ready to start a new days’ sheet.

Finally I will finish this section with one of my favourite poems, which I think sums up why we should bother scheduling – so that we are free to enjoy each day.

Salutation of the dawn

Look to this day!
For it is life,
the very life of life.
In its brief course
lie all the verities and
realities of your existence:
the bliss of growth,
the glory of action,
the splendour of beauty,
for yesterday is but a dream
and tomorrow is only a vision,
but today well lived makes
every yesterday a dream of
happiness and every tomorrow
a vision of hope.
Look well, therefore, to this day!
Such is the salutation of the dawn.

Ancient Sanskrit poem by Kalidasa

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Checklists

Having read The Checklist Manifesto, by Atul Gawande, I am a convert to using checklists. I like to take the thinking out of repetitive tasks.

Using a checklist makes them an automatic habit, saving time and makes sure that they are consistent. Take for instance, my daily morning checklist, it ensures that I do the following every day without fail.

• Recite affirmations – written down in another checklist.
• Write journal entry – I also have a checklist of questions that I write answers to.
• Daily records log – here I record all the habits and targets I am focusing on e.g. calories consumer, TV watched and internet time etc.
• Meditate

By following this checklist, it becomes a habit and because it is a habit I can adapt and add to it. For instance, I could add to do some yoga stretches to the list and I know that I will do it.
I must stress that you should not work from a to do lists. To do lists are merely receptacles for things that you want or need to do. The list you will work from is your daily list.

The Daily List

The daily list is self-explanatory; it is the list of things you have agreed with yourself that you will achieve that day. No more, no less. It is not something you add to during the day. It is a finite list and anything else should go on your to do list.

I would recommend that every evening (or first thing in the morning if you prefer), that you write out a list of the things that you want to do/ or achieve that day. To start with if you are new to this concept, then start with just one or two items. Just write down the most important things you can do that day.
Your first task of the day will be to complete the first item on that list. You do nothing else until you complete that one thing. If anything should crop up whilst you are in the middle of your most important task, then make a note of it in your notepad to action later, and then return to your task.




Once you do the first task, move to the next one. This discipline, of tackling the most import thing first in the morning, is so important to your success. It will set you up for the day. If you study successful people, you will see that they tackle their most import task first.

Once you are sure that you have pinned down this habit of tackling the most important few tasks, you can start to add to the number. I would recommend no more than 10. If you fail to achieve one of the tasks on the list, then it becomes the most important thing to do for the next day.

How do you decide what your import tasks are? These will come from your goals and projects. From these, you decide what your week’s goals and targets are. This weekly goal list should be your first point of call in deciding your most important daily tasks. Look over your weekly list and note down anything you can do the next day to move you forward. Then you can look down your single action list to see if there is anything there that you can action that day.

Now that you have your daily list, you can see where this fits in with pre-arranged appointments on your schedule. See post on Scheduling.
So there you have it. This is a way for you to move forward to your goals day by day, by using checklists and tackling the most important tasks first.

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Prioritising

There are a million and one things you could be doing right now. Prioritising is deciding what the one thing is, you should be doing right now. That one thing is your highest priority.
Priority is singular; it comes from the Latin prior- former. It means the one most important thing. You can only have one most important task; in other words you don’t have a list of priorities, you only have one priority.
So how do you determine what your priority is right now? There are different tools and models that you can use to determine what your highest priority is. The first is the Goals to Actions model.

Goals to actions

Before you go any further I recommend at least that you read the blog on Goal Setting. Here you will learn the importance of having direction in the different areas of your life.

Direction comes from your vision and long-term goals, which are in turn broken down in to smaller goals and projects. These smaller goals and projects will then have associated next actions for you to take.
Depending on what your progress is, with these goals, will determine which of your next actions will take priority.

The concept of the different areas of focus of your life, will also determine what a priority is. You may have different areas of focus in your life, but the common ones would include business, health, spouse, family, friends etc. I use the acronym COMBINED.

To ensure you have balance in your life you would therefore prioritise certain tasks above others at certain times of the day or week. For instance my number one priority at the start of my business day is to make my 20 daily sales calls. Once I have done this I can move onto other things.
At other times of day, it becomes a priority to spend time with my loved ones or to perform my exercise routine. At other times, it may be my priority to sit down with a good book.

The Strategic Next Action

My 20 calls a day priority would be an example of a recurring task (see Scheduling for more on this). I call tasks that are not recurring, Strategic Next Actions (SNAs).
These immediate actions will move you forward in your goals. Once they are completed, there will be another SNA to complete. Watch out for the blog coming soon on Managing Projects, for more on SNAs. (Sign up for the newsletter and and you will get it sent automatically).

To do lists

No blog on productivity and goal setting would be complete without the obligatory section on To Do lists. Lists are great and I thoroughly recommend writing things down. In fact, it is essential for the successful person. Ideas and sudden reminders don’t come to you when you expect them to, but when you are engaged in something else or relaxing. That is why I recommend investing in a good pocket notepad and start to jot down everything that comes to mind. You don’t need to action anything just yet; that will come later. Again, see the In-to-Empty concept later in a blog on workflow mastery (Coming soon).

After you process these incoming ideas, some of these will be actionable items. You are then free to add these to a to-do list. See how to write out properly worded actions later.

The next question is where do you track these items? As I said before I am not going into details on the technology you use here, because whether you use an old-fashioned paper method or a task management system, the principle of good self-management is the same.

The first thing you have to get in mind, is that your to do lists will NEVER be completed. The to-do list should merely be a holding point for actions, which you agree to take.

I think of my to-do lists as reservoirs of actionable items, which I am waiting to add to my daily list.

What form should your to do lists take? If you read the on goal setting before, you will see that I use several to-do lists. I have a Single Action list of tasks that are unrelated to any projects or goals.

I have Project lists, which are multi action projects. Following on from this, I also have Project Action lists, so that for each Project, I list the actions related to it.

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