Stay Organized

Editor's Notes

• #3  Hopper: The Hopper quickly and and frequently switches tasks throughout the day. Hoppers often enjoy variety and like to feel the gratification of completing small tasks, but they may be easily distracted by other people or technology. This is the most common of the temporal organizing styles Perfectionist Plus: The Perfectionist Plus seeks excellent performance in every activity, sets very high standards for herself and others, and may have difficulty distinguishing between valuable and less-valuable uses of her time Allergic to Detail: The person who is Allergic to Detail enjoys thinking about the big picture and new ideas, sometimes neglecting smaller details or follow-through. Fence Sitter: The Fence Sitter can see both sides of an issue and thoroughly researches upcoming decisions, both large and small, sometimes to the point of forestalling action. The Cliff Hanger thrives on adrenaline, deadlines, and external pressure, but sometimes loses track of all the commitments he’s juggling.
• #4 Lack of Clear Scope/Definition: One of the most common barriers to accelerating a change is the lack of a common understanding of what the change actually is! Too often there is no clear, concise picture of what the future looks like. In Don Harrison’s words, "if you don't know where you are going, how will you know when you get there?" Prioritization Problems: So many projects... so little time (and so few resources). Virtually every organization today has too much going on, creating a huge amount of stress on everyone involved. The question is how do you manage project prioritization? Insufficient Active Change Leadership: If we’ve said it once, we’ve said it a million times: Sponsorship is the single most important factor in implementation success! But remember, project Sponsors must do more than sign a check authorizing funding for an initiative and show up at the project launch meeting. They must authorize, legitimize and demonstrate ownership throughout the lifecycle of the project. Resistance to Change: If you are attempting business transformation, you should anticipate up-front that you are going to create high levels of disruption, and consequently high levels of resistance to change. The AIM methodology principle is that resistance is a function of the level of disruption to your Targets, not whether people like or dislike a change. If you don't see change resistance, rest assured it is there! Poor Communications: There is a common belief that just getting a message out to an audience is enough to get buy-in, eliminate resistance and even drive behavior change. As a result, too many organizations singularly invest in top-down, one-way communications that don’t motivate people to move from the status quo to the desired state. Lack of Rigorous Governance for Transformational Changes: How will the transformation be managed? If you are investing in an organizational change that is transformational in scope and complexity, you can't have multiple approaches with no oversight on how the program is being managed from the portfolio down to the sub-project level. The governance structure should provide a clear line of sight from strategy to portfolio to programs, projects, and sub-projects. If Sponsors don't have this line of sight then the transformational change portfolio will lack disciplined management.
• #6 Make a list: Make a List: First thing in the morning, write down everything that needs to get done that day. Once you have everything down, separate the items into urgent vs. non-urgent to determine the top priorities for that day. Assess value: Assess the Value: Completing certain tasks will offer more benefit than others. For example, I have a rule that client work comes before internal work. Because client work not getting done has bigger ramifications more often than internal work. Be honest: Be Honest: When creating your list of priorities, be realistic about your bandwidth. Setting unattainable goals will only cause disappointment down the road. Be flexible: Be Flexible: To be able to effectively prioritize, you must be able to deal with changing priorities. Take them as they come and decide if they are urgent or not. Cut the cord: Cut the Cord: As a perfectionist, this is the one that I struggle with the most. When something is really important, it’s easy to get caught up in the details and end up spending way too much time on a project or task. Spending too much time on one priority, however, prevents you from getting other stuff knocked off your list. Acknowledge when you’re doing this and enforce strict deadlines to prevent yourself from going down the rabbit hole.