Talane’s Blog of the Week, July 24, 2006

A coaching colleague, Mark Forster, has just released his third, and perhaps best, book, Do it Tomorrow. In this book he shares some radical approaches to time management. We have all experienced how much easier and more efficient it is to work from a closed, finite list. When you come back from vacation and have a huge stack of mail to open, you probably get through it quickly – rapidly discarding junk mail, piling up bills to pay in a batch, etc. There is efficiency in batching tasks, returning calls together, paying bills together, replying to emails all at once. So if you could figure out how to batch your work, you would gain two big benefits: (1) you’d be working off a closed, finite list with a defined end vs. an open, infinite list (like trying to finish today’s email as they keep on coming in), and (2) you’d get a great sense of accomplishment and completion (“I finished the whole stack!”), something you never get when your list is open-ended.

Here is the radical part: in order to batch your work, you need to do it tomorrow. This means, take all your incoming email from today and DO NOT DO THEM. Instead, put them in a folder labelled “yesterday’s email.” The same for your mail. DO NOT OPEN IT! Instead, put it in a box labelled “yesterday’s mail.” What does that mean? Tomorrow you will be working off a closed, finite list, instead of an open, infinite list. You will be motivated to get it all done because you can – there is an end in sight. Very gratifying. This also prevents knee-jerk reactions because you’ll have gained a day’s worth of perspective as well. Of course, you may need to scan your email and voicemail once or twice a day to check for anything that must be handled the same day. Everything else goes into your “yesterday’s” folders.

The way to make Mark’s system work is to decide each day what your one day’s work will be. Put those items on your “will-do” list—not your “to-do” list. The “will- do” list contains only the actions you will do today. Include time to handle yesterday’s mail on your will-do list. Make sure you factor in time for each task so you don’t give yourself more than one day’s work. This is now easier because you can see how much you have to do (you know exactly how much mail you have to open, email to answer, calls to return.) Then draw a line below this full day of work. Anything extra (a call that truly must be returned today or an email that must be responded to today) gets added below the line. This will motivate you to add very little below the line! Try it out. It is extremely refreshing and motivating to work off closed lists. Working off open-ended lists feels like the work never ever gets done. Oddly enough, if you do everything tomorrow, you’ll feel ahead of the game and get a real sense of accomplishment.

Enjoy!
Talane

P.S. Do it Tomorrow, by Mark Forster can be ordered from amazon.co.uk