Andy KaufmanHost| People and Projects PodcastLake Zurich, Il, United States
Our profession has a set of practices that help keep our projects on track. But how do you keep yourself on track? How do you keep yourself from getting distracted by the trivial, allowing you to focus on the most important priorities most of the time?
Specific strategies, tools, and techniques would be great (even if they seem minor--if something helps you, it's likely to help some colleagues here as well). Thank you! Saving Changes...
There are so many great tools and techniques already recommended! I may add Getting Things Done as a method that helps you to differentiate between things you should do right away, things coming in that you can plan, and things that are already planned which you should do now. It also recommends to put similar tasks together like all the scheduled calls on a day and specific inbox handling slots. Furthermore it suggests to distribute recurring tasks evenly: only one weekly item per day, one monthly item per week, one annual item per month - if possible.
Additionally it recaps something very crucial: You have only ONE budget = your time, which is why you should not scatter it across different tools. This is something I have seen people get stuck with quite often. There are appointments in Outlook, tasks on a to do list, items on at least one kanban board, sticky notes on your desk, and in the end they were overcommited as they were not able to oversee their commitments anymore.
I am very happy with Microsoft Planner (still in Preview, but great) as I have one Planner for my projects and subjects/initiatives each and the Planner Hub aggregates them all for me. Of course, appointments are still in Outlook, which is why I have a routine every morning:
1. checking what is new or changed (e-mail, voice mail, appointments, etc.)
2. checking what was there (planned tasks and appointments)
3. integrating new items that are urgent and important (Eisenhower for sure), if REALLY necessary delaying something with minor priority
4. integrating new items for later
5. delegating what does not have to be done by myself
I do this every morning really fast which is why I'm up-to-date and well prepared each day. Additionally, I just don't plan for 100% of my time - I leave a buffer of up to 25% depending on e.g. the phases my projects are in.
My time is tracked with Grindstone and transferred to our reporting system later.
Bests! Saving Changes...
Stéphane ParentSelf Employed / Semi-retired| Leader MakerPrince Edward Island, Canada
Over the years, I have moved away from to-do lists. I found myself spending too much time updating the to-do list, rather than doing the work on it.
Instead, I use my Outlook inbox to keep track of what needs to be done and what needs to be followed upon. Basically, I don't move an item from my inbox until it is completed. I can quickly assign inbox items an importance. Not only does it help me work on the most critical first, it also allows me to visually group my items by importance.
The other thing I found useful is using Room To Work (RTOW) appointments in my calendar. For example, I set up 30-minute RTOW recurring appointments before and after my recurring meetings. This avoids the problem of adjacent meetings.
I also set up a delay rule on all my outgoing emails. By default, any email I send will be delayed for 3 minutes. I have an exception set: if I flag the email as Important, it will be sent immediately. I call this rule my Oh Sh*t! rule. That's what you say when you just realize after clicking Send that you just goofed. It has saved me countless number of times. This works well in Outlook. I haven't found a way to delay emails from my phone yet.
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1 reply by Paolo Cornali
Mar 02, 2016 7:25 AM
Paolo Cornali
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I also don't move an item from my inbox until it is completed, anyway I have not moved away my to do list because the use of outlook inbox alone to track all the things and relative notes seemed reductive. Anyway it is interesting see another point-of-view.
Instead I agree with Bala, nice trick the delay rule in outlook. Probably it would saved me number of times, in particular when I missed the attachments. :-(
Saving Changes...
Bala S DuvvuriProject Manager| ShellBangalore, Karnataka, India
Nice Feature Stephane Delay rule in outlook,i am going to try that. Saving Changes...
Paolo CornaliProject Manager| HTA srlBrescia, Lombardia, Italy
Mar 01, 2016 9:51 PM
Replying to Stéphane Parent
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Over the years, I have moved away from to-do lists. I found myself spending too much time updating the to-do list, rather than doing the work on it.
Instead, I use my Outlook inbox to keep track of what needs to be done and what needs to be followed upon. Basically, I don't move an item from my inbox until it is completed. I can quickly assign inbox items an importance. Not only does it help me work on the most critical first, it also allows me to visually group my items by importance.
The other thing I found useful is using Room To Work (RTOW) appointments in my calendar. For example, I set up 30-minute RTOW recurring appointments before and after my recurring meetings. This avoids the problem of adjacent meetings.
I also set up a delay rule on all my outgoing emails. By default, any email I send will be delayed for 3 minutes. I have an exception set: if I flag the email as Important, it will be sent immediately. I call this rule my Oh Sh*t! rule. That's what you say when you just realize after clicking Send that you just goofed. It has saved me countless number of times. This works well in Outlook. I haven't found a way to delay emails from my phone yet.
I also don't move an item from my inbox until it is completed, anyway I have not moved away my to do list because the use of outlook inbox alone to track all the things and relative notes seemed reductive. Anyway it is interesting see another point-of-view.
Instead I agree with Bala, nice trick the delay rule in outlook. Probably it would saved me number of times, in particular when I missed the attachments. :-( Saving Changes...
Stéphane ParentSelf Employed / Semi-retired| Leader MakerPrince Edward Island, Canada
Yes, missed attachments is definitely one of my more common oops.
I tried using an Outlook add-in which is meant to let you know when your message hints at an attachment but none is present.
Unfortunately, a picture in your signature, will fool the software. Saving Changes...
Brian MukoyiProjects Manager| J R Goddard ContractingBulawayo, Zimbabwe
Listing critical tasks that needs to be completed the following day before knocking off seems to work for me.
You can always update it during the course of the day as more urgent tasks which can not be ignored can be thrown your way .
The most important thing to manage during execution is emails. Emails can distract you and you need to plan the time that suits you to attend to them.
Another list that works for me is the list of tasks I would have delegated. Each of these tasks have to be closed and it may involve meeting delegates at different times. So this has to be carefully managed. Saving Changes...
