To do, Doing, Done

Tl;dr - Your focus and resources are precious. You can only do a small number of things well. Make firm decisions about what you are focussing on by maintaining a simple Kanban.

Three concepts

1. To Do, Doing, Done

2. Limit 'Doing'

3. The backlog

Kanban - follow the link to read the definition and history if you wish. The simple, but important concept is that of a To Do list format where you have 3 lists labelled To Do, Doing and Done.

Knowledge workers have to manage many things. We are expected to maintain focus and attention on lots of different types of activities, that move at different paces and have varying criticality. We have to keep track of everything, make decisions about what is important and what to spend time on. It is very easy to be drawn into doing things that feel urgent, or are being highlighted by others as urgent. It's also tempting to do easy things and put off doing harder things. We need a way to keep track of everything to be done, clearly prioritise what should be done now and manage our capacity to focus on a small number of the most important things.

Using Trello, excel, or post-its (the tool doesn’t matter, just use something you are familiar with) create three columns for TO DO, DOING and DONE. Start to note down tasks that need to be done at some point under TO DO.

Now looking at your tasks, try to order them in terms of priority. The top of your column is your highest priority item, working down to the lowest priority at the bottom of the column. What determines high vs low priority is up to you, but typically this is based on high urgency and high impact. Don’t worry about this being exact, as long as it feels roughly right.

Now, looking at your top priority items, pick 3 tasks, that you have defined as the highest priority and move them over to the DOING column. Stick to 3. Focus on those three tasks until they are completed, even if it takes weeks. When they are completed, move those tasks over to DONE. Make sure that that task is actually done. In software development there is concept of Definition of Done, where teams consciously work together to define exactly what DONE means. We don’t need to do that, but its worth giving it a thought - "Am I satisfied that is really completed?". If yes, move it to DONE. You'll get a surprisingly satisfying feeling that never really wanes the more you do this. After moving a task from DOING to DONE, you now have a space in your DOING column, some capacity. Go back to your TO DO column and move the next highest priority item over to DOING. Repeat ad infinitum.

Stick to three tasks in DOING. It is important to only have a small number of tasks on the go at once. You can do other things as demands come in from colleagues and business needs. You don’t need to be militant about only actually doing what is in your DOING column. You'll get dragged into conversations and meetings about other things, things will come up that need some attention. But for you, you are clear about what your priorities are. When you sit down to get on with your work, these are the things you focus on.

If something comes in that is genuinely more important than the things in your DOING column. Simply move the lowest priority item from your DOING back to the TO DO list and replace it with the new thing. Now you can be clear with everyone, especially yourself, that you are de-prioritising something to make room for the new higher priority item. New urgent priorities come in all the time. Nobody is expected to just absorb more and more. If you are a knowledge worker you are a manager, you are expected to manage priorities. That includes deprioritising to make room for higher priorities.

Now for the best bit: embrace the fact that you will never get everything done. When things come up, when a colleague asks for something, when someone helpfully points out that something should really be done about X and looks at you, when your boss throws another task at you. Put it into your TO DO list and place it in its priority position - highest at the top, lowest at the bottom, or somewhere in between. And that's it, go back to simply focussing on your 3 DOING tasks and when one is complete, take the next highest priority off the TO DO list. In software development this is a called your backlog. It will be long, become longer and will never be completed. Don't look at it as an anxiety inducing indictment of all the things you've failed to complete. Instead, look at it like an ever-growing list of bullshit you don’t have to think about right now.

That’s it. With this simple approach you now have clarity of

1. Your priorities

2. What you need to focus on now

3. What you can stop thinking about