Author : Claire Tompkins
1. Avoid vagueness. This also helps you know what not to do. This means delineating the actual steps you will take to complete any project, even if you know them in your head.
By delineating, I mean write them down or talk them out. When they are stuck in your head they tend to be full of untested assumptions, ideas that won't go anywhere, wishes, hopes, dreams, yesterday's lunch, etc. Your brain is a wonderful place for creativity, but not as good for making an orderly sequence. In fact, when you first start talking or writing, you'll probably get a lot of unrelated ideas and what if's. That's fine. The content needs to get out of your head and into a place where it can be edited.2. Define work before you do it to avoid second guessing. Be your own "boss" and delineate what needs to be done. Then put on your "employee" hat and just get to work; no more deciding or improving or looking for new ideas.
These two functions require different kinds of thinking. Your inner boss is the one who brainstorms, makes five year plans and sees the big picture. She's the idea person. Your inner employee is the one who executes those ideas. She doesn't distract herself with unrelated information and she doesn't have opinions about the work. She trusts the boss to have made a good plan. Obviously, since these people are both you, there will be back and forth dialogue. But keep the identities separate; don't switch between thinking modes as you work..3. The more clearly you define what your work is, the easier it is to see which details are important and not allow them to fall through the cracks.
Try visualizing your work, down to the smallest details. Once you've written down a plan, step through it in your mind. Maybe you're in a meeting and you see that David is there. That may remind you that he's not on the email list yet. Go back and put him on.
You can also try visualizing backwards from the final result. Say the new website is launched. What happened right before that? And before that? You may find a step that's out of sequence in your line up because you forgot about something that has to happen first.4. The more specific you are, the more realistic you will be about your time.
When you get all the details down on paper, you'll see that a task like "making the punch list" isn't just sitting down and writing a list. You'll need to consult with various sources to get the information, and that takes time. You may need to go back to the budget or the project plan to check things. Whenever you put a task on your to do list, make sure it's as small as it needs to be. It has to be immediately do-able and must further the project. In the previous example, a first task might be to contact Lisa and get the list of beta tester suggestions. That's a concrete, do-able task.Claire Tompkins specializes in simple, efficient systems to help people be more productive, more easily. Before figuring out how to do something better, ask why you're doing it at all. Go to http://www.clairetompkins.com to find out more.
These tips about defining your work are excerpts from my soon-to-be-published booklet, "110 Ideas To Get Organized at Work, whether you work in a corporate high rise or a one-person home office." It will be available as an ebook (downloadable from my website) and most likely a printed booklet as well. If you'd like to buy a copy of the ebook for $7.00 USD, please email me and I'll let you know when it's available.
Keyword : productivity, organized, prioritizing, getting things done, work, to do list, task, effective
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