The first time I read David Allen’s “Getting Things Done”, there was an illustration that has stayed with me my whole corporate life: dealing with an overflowing in-tray.
The illustration goes something like this (I’ll hunt down the reference and post here when I do): Executive has an overflowing in-tray; papers to read, calls to respond to, a full calendar. There is weeks’ worth of work piled up and un-organised. When David arrives to coach the executive through the “mess”, it takes about a weekend to go through it all. At the end of the process, it is discovered there is “little” to do.
At first I called BS. Great story to make a point but he hasn’t seen my in-tray! This’ll never work.
I have been in this situation a number of times. Have you?
Maybe your inbox can look a little like this?
- A physical tray piled with paper.
- An Inbox with masses of email, all glanced at (so categorised as “read”).
- Note books filled with notes from meetings that I need to action.
As I am sure you can guess, the stress becomes unbearable.
So I decided to take David Allen’s medicine.
Collecting
The first time I addressed this, I grabbed a bunch (maybe a whole box?) of manila folders.
I planned ahead and brought a case (think luggage) to the office to bring all the physical material home.
I printed out any reports I’d need to read and write action points on.
I was dreading working through all this material and finding some pending catastrophes I had forgotten about, ignored or hoped would go away on their own.
Outcome Based
I settled down on a Saturday afternoon and, following the rule of “Don’t handle anything twice”, I prepared to work through each piece of paper and write down the appropriate action. I wrote this down in a fashion that would make sense on Monday. I wouldn’t have time to “interpret” my scribbles from Saturday and Sunday. So I wrote “outcome based” … what would be the outcome if I completed the task successfully?
- Call John to confirm the Go Live is booked.
- Set up meeting with Gail to discuss performance review outcomes
- Create a Team meeting agenda to stop you scrambling very bloody week! (I generally put the expletives in there if no-one else will see the document as it creates a sense of importance for me and, on Monday, may give me a chuckle and lighten the mood ahead of a busy week!)
Action required
This was another category when I picked up a document. What action is required by me? The last two words are critically important: “by me”. Being in a management role, was this something that could/should be delegated? If so, to who and how long should I give them to get back to me? The time scale depended on how long I had had the request in the first place. I couldn’t feel comfortable giving a direct report a deadline with significantly less days than I was originally given.
In these cases I looked ahead 2 or 3 days past the original deadline and my task was to contact the stakeholder, explain the situation and agree the new deadline. Most of the time this worked. In fact, I can’t recall a time when it didn’t.
Filing
It was tempting to follow the adage: “if they haven’t followed you up, it couldn’t have been that critical” and just file the document. And there were certainly a few of those. Probably why they were still in the in-tray or Inbox, I just hadn’t taken the time to file them at the time (There’s a lesson in there somewhere!)
However, assuming some people maybe crazy busy, I looked at each document with the “what is the best outcome here?” measuring stick. This worked really well, in particularly, by reviewing each document, I was also developing my thought process around the required action. This meant that, if asked about why I filed a document and took no further action, or why I took a specific type of action, there was some rationale behind it. If I feel this would be best documented, I write that on the item as well. (e.g. “Filed, NFA” (No Further Action), project has progressed past this point”. Other information available (add reference if known)).
Time-Lapses
Another realisation was that of “time-lapse”. One of the things that will pop into my head is that actions from a recent meeting hadn’t been (actioned!).
All sorts of expletives arise! Plus some fairly restrictive self talk (“What an idiot!”, “Why didn’t you follow this up?”, “You’re always* doing this!”. And sometimes worse!)
What the reality is, most times, is something like when I realise I haven’t actioned something from a few weeks ago, frequently I discover it was literally last Tuesday and I was completing this review on the following Saturday … three days had passed, not three (or more) weeks. So in these instances I put a reasonable deadline date on the document, file it under a folder of the appropriate project and who I need to respond to or ask for further information from.
*The fateful “always” and “never” which always heightens your stress levels and never does any good!
Next Steps
There is always work to do when completing this exercise.
A few tasks I had, indeed, forgotten. A few I wasn’t behind as much as I thought. I have found many times that there is a bloody good reason why I haven’t done a task (waiting for others, or had actually planned it for a day in the future!).
There have also been many times when I had done the task and the reference material was in my in tray making me think it was waiting to be done! (Hallelujah moment!)
Now that I had all the tasks called out for what they are, it was time to plan their execution. This is such a good time in this process, as I can now calendar time for each task. By noting the outcome, who it is with/for and assessing a possible timeframe for completing the task, I can map out how much time is required to complete the work. All in the comfort of my own home, albeit on the weekend.
I grab my calendar, electronic or paper based, and start slotting in times for completing tasks. Batch similar tasks (emails to be sent, for instance) and get them at the appropriate time. I generally create a calendar event titled Admin (so specific!) and copy emails I am going to address into that event as attachments.
Come Monday morning, I have the time allocated complete these. I set up meetings with people, stakeholders I need to discuss deadlines with and team members, who are about to get some tasks delegated to them.
Real Catastrophes
These can occur, though, to be honest, things I have thought to be “real catastrophes” havern’t turned out to be. Remember, people are just as busy as you are and if you come to them with a problem and a proposed solution, more often than not, you are their saviour, not the devil from hell!
I had a mate who, as we were heading to a charity golf game, was on the phone to an IT supplier. He was organising a server to be sent to a client because he had forgotten to add it into the proposal. Not great (and not something I’d suggest is good to repeat). But he got through it. The client was a bit pissed off but had mentally included a server in the costs and had forgotten to question it when the proposal came through.
Being open an honest when you have seriously forgotten something is the best policy. But beating yourself up because you “should’ve” thought of whatever it was, isn’t going to do you any good. (Note: my mate should have thought of the server!😉)
Completion
There is a great relief in completing this process, no matter what comes up. If you’re courageous enough, and most of us are, you can get on the front foot on Monday and call those who may be waiting for some level of response. Even setting up meetings with an appropriate subject line will provide a pathway to success.
I have also found that I am generally more in control of the situation than I feel. I think most of us are. We’re pretty efficient and while the workspace may look messy and inundated with unfinished tasks, that isn’t always the case. We’re invariably quite competent.
If you have tried this approach, what else did you do? What do you do that is efficient and effective?
Do you have a “catastrophe in-waiting” and this approach may help you avoid that?
Let me know.
Cheers
