Getting to It: Accomplishing the Important, Handling the Urgent, and Removing the Unnecessary
What You Want: To have more free time and less stress
What to Try: Make a paid-to-do list
Step 1: Make a list of everything you do at work, write corporate
trainers Jones Loflin and Todd Musig, who train Fortune 500 companies
in time management and work-life balance. (If you are the director of a
candy factory, for example, you might write down: monitor chocolate and
butterscotch makers, advise the wrapping designer, plan factory
expansion, make sure the tasters don't taste
too enthusiastically). As the two describe in
Getting to It: Accomplishing the Important, Handling the Urgent, and Removing the Unnecessary,
their clients typically start the list with their current workload,
then mention other upcoming activities, then lastly remember "all the
smaller tasks that dot their plates like peas." After listening to their
clients' frustrations for a short while, Loflin and Musig then ask
them, "What are you paid to do?" In that moment, the clients usually
realize how much of their day is spent on problems they inherited, tasks
no one else wants to (or can) do and putting out minor (but avoidable)
fireballs.
Step 2: "Dust off your job description," the two write, "and
review your most recent evaluation." Make another list of the four or
five things you're paid to do. If you give those your full attention,
your performance on other to-dos may not matter as much. You'll do
better at what your boss needs you
most for. P.S. "This
strategy," the two write, "also applies to the other roles in your life.
What are the three or four things you can do as a parent, neighbor,
volunteer, baseball coach, Sunday-school teacher, gardener, son-in-law,
dancer, and so on, that make the greatest impact? Three or four key
things are doable. Ten or 12 can be overwhelming."
