I’m convinced a former colleague had a dodo list. Tasks would get added to his ‘To Do’ list, and if they were able to languish long enough they would eventually become extinct. You could say it was an effective way of managing one’s commitments. It now seems a wholly appropriate tactic – the person in question was a senior executive, and if there is one skill they need to survive at that altitude it’s selective involvement.
For a long time I had my own to do list. This evolved, as I incorporated a calendar so I could carve out tranches of time for substantial tasks; the list itself became a home for those items that were small but important, and a convenient repository for anything I didn’t want to forget. I found writing things down to be the best method, for me, of removing the mental distraction of worry, liberating my mind to focus on the work of the moment.
I employed that same tactic of writing things down during meetings. Doing so helps me listen. I’m often guilty of listening in order to speak – an idea enters my head and I want to interrupt, yet at the same time I want to be respectful, to hear the person out. These divergent goals leave me so intent on holding on to my idea, lest I forget, that I completely fail to to hear them. When I take my distraction and write it down I’m free to turn my attention back to the speaker – I do a better job of listening. I can then return to what I wrote during a more convenient moment, when I invariably find my idea’s time has passed or that was a comment made solely in vanity – they are rarely resuscitated.
I recall writing notes during a meeting in which a teammate was giving a rather lengthy status report. My pen was poised above the surface of the paper as I waited to write down what he had achieved. My pen never hit the page. I had sat with this person for months hearing his very engaging weekly updates, and being completely taken in by his ability to use a lot of words to convey little progress. At first I thought it was the writing that brought me this clarity but I soon realized it was something else.
At the same time in my career I had began working with one of those cool people who come into our lives, exuding the confidence of being exactly where they ought to be in life, and who sprinkle a little gold for you to weave into your own tapestry, should you choose. One of her gold threads was to begin every single meeting, regardless of whether she was chairing it, by asking, “what are we trying to achieve here?” In that meeting with my loquacious teammate my insight regarding his lack of progress came not from how was I trying to capture it, but rather because of what I was listening for – what had he achieved?
My to do list transformed from a list of tasks into a list of deliverables. I try to run projects the same way. It can be hard to sustain this mindset working in a law firm, where fee earners commonly bill and are remunerated according to time recorded. Business can’t survive without results so I know this is happening, but from a tracking and data standpoint effort can be a more convenient metric.
I don’t want to make the case for achievements over tasks in all cases. There are far too many who believe they have figured things out and take a very firm stance that their world view is correct. Sometimes it’s not about the result at all, and it really is about the journey. This is more common during social and recreational pursuits – I don’t go for an early morning run just as the sun is rising because I’m looking forward to getting back home! But in a business sense there is much to be said for having an achievement mindset. I just know I feel better at the end of the day when I can see, feel and touch the deliverables produced than when I see how much time I have spent doing something.
“There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all.”
~ Peter Drucker
I have also found that when we look at what needs to be achieved rather than what needs be done we also open ourselves up to other ways of making things happen. Deliverables lists promote creativity. What is important seems more evident, and perhaps there is less chance of me finding myself with a dodo list.
