Getting Things Done. Rus Slater
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Benjamin Franklin (1706–90), a Founding Father of the USA
If you fail to use the day’s deposit, the loss is yours. There is no going back. You need to use this deposit wisely so as to get from it the utmost in business success, health and happiness. Use it so as to get the most done.
The clock is running, and you need to make the most of your time. Think about the value of these units of time:
• The value of one year. To recognize the value of a year, ask a student who failed to achieve the grade.
• The value of one month. Ask a mother who gave birth to a premature baby.
• The value of one week. Ask the person who edits the weekly newspaper.
• The value of one hour. Ask the people sitting waiting for someone vital to join a meeting.
• The value of one minute. Ask the person who just missed their train and so failed to make an important presentation.
• The value of one millisecond. Ask the person who won the silver medal.
If you should have done something and you didn’t, you can’t have the time back! So learn to make the most of it.
Remember that time waits for no one.
1.2 Ask for clear instructions
Often people can be a bit vague when they are giving instructions or explaining what they want. This may not appear to be much of a problem at first, but it can lead to a lot of wasted time. If someone asks you to do something for them, make sure you are 100% certain about what’s required.
1 Whenever possible, get a written instruction or request; the act of writing down instructions makes people think more carefully and fully about what they actually want. It also saves you having a difference of opinion later about what was said and heard.
2 Whether written or spoken, try to get the request in as much specific detail as possible. For instance, “Pick me up outside the west door of the HSBC Bank”, rather than “Pick me up at the bank.”
3 Getting it done late is no good; you need to know the deadline for the job to be done. Again, make sure you get specific detail: “by 5.30pm on Friday afternoon” rather than “by Friday” or “this week” or “as soon as possible”.
one minute wonder Before you start on any task, make sure you know the What, Where, When and How of the job you are about to undertake. If you don’t, you will quite possibly end up wasting all the time you spend.
At work there may be specific quality standards to be achieved. For example, your manager wants a report on sales to date this year, broken down by product and region and cross referenced by sales person. The report is needed by 5pm on Friday the 12th of July.
Ok, those were your instructions, which on the face of it seemed clear, with a specific deadline. However, is there really enough detail about how the report should be submitted? You shouldn’t be starting on this task until you know the specific details, such as:
• Is it in draft form or final form?
• Is it to be in a specific format (for example a company template)?
• Does it need to feed into other standard company forms?
If the person giving the instructions doesn’t offer all the essential detail, then you are going to have to ask. Never be shy about asking for more detail. The best way to start is to repeat back your understanding of the instruction to the person who gave it to you. That’s what pilots do!
See also Secret 7.3 when you need to give good instructions.
Getting it right first time is always better than having to come back and do it again.
1.3 See the relevance of the bigger picture
People often talk about the ‘bigger picture’, often meaning the strategy of the organization or overall purpose. You need to know how what you are doing is contributing to the ‘bigger picture’ and moving the organization closer to that final goal.
It is really easy to simply accept any instruction from your superiors as being ‘right’: not something to question, but something just to do, even if you can’t see its relevance.
It isn’t necessarily a criticism of your boss if you question an instruction; it may be simply that you want to understand how the instruction fits into the overall purpose of the organization. Understanding this increases your commitment to doing it and doing it well, whereas if you are doing something that, quite literally, has no point you will quickly become disillusioned. Likewise, it is valuable to recognize how doing something that doesn’t benefit the organization is potentially valueless to them, therefore making you (or at least your job) unnecessary.
What is important is to ensure that you check the relevance to the bigger picture in a way that doesn’t seem to be critical of your boss. Opposite are some tips on how to do this.
one minute wonder You may have to do a mix of tasks, some of which are relevant to the bigger picture and some of which are irrelevant. Make sure you know the level of importance to attach to the irrelevant ones.
1 Approach your boss in private, not in front of other people, when you want to check the relevance of the tasks requested of you.
2 Ask ‘open’ questions, which cannot be answered simply with a “Yes” or “No”. Ask how, why, what, where and who questions rather that do/does, will, can. For example, “I need to understand how this contributes to the departmental sales activity” or “Where does this feed into the manufacturing process?”
3 If necessary ‘sell’ the benefits to the manager of taking the time to explain this: “I want to do this job really well for you, so can you explain…” or “If I understand the value of this task, I can ensure that it gets the priority it deserves…”
4 If the task isn’t actually relevant to the bigger picture, but the boss still wants it done, ask what its priority is in relation to the tasks you have that are relevant.
5 Thank your boss for explaining it. You’ll quickly ‘train’ your boss to ensure that you only get relevant tasks without asking!
Knowing how your tasks relate to the bigger picture helps both you and your boss to organize the workload.
1.4 Identify what’s relevant to you
In work you need to be sure that the things you do are really part of your job (and that means your boss’s view of your job). Similarly, outside work you want to be sure that doing things for others doesn’t stop you doing things for yourself.
There are many reasons why people find themselves doing things at work that aren’t their job. The same goes for non-work life; whether it is doing things for your family or the community. For example:
• Their job is ill defined.
• The person who complains the least gets the task.
• This person will do it better than anyone else, either because they have the skill or the commitment.
• The task is something that a person likes, so they volunteer to do it.
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