Discardia_ More Life, Less Stuff - Dinah Sanders [102]
Taking the real stuff of your daily life and using it to produce your best outcomes radically changes your experience of the world for the better. This practical approach to being focused and open to change creates a more balanced life at work—and away from it—and a happier you, even in the face of moment-to-moment chaos.
Define your work in terms of success conditions
Think about whether your job description says, “Have an empty inbox and no loose papers on the desk.” I'm guessing that it probably doesn’t. Instead, it might have something to do with building customer satisfaction, keeping superiors or clients informed about the status of ongoing work, producing results on those projects on time and under budget, etc.
It's hard to remember, but let go of the illusion that your job will be done properly when you're “all caught up.” Dig out the job description and comments from your last review, and see what the real measure of “things going properly” should be. Put it in priority order. Write it up and discuss it with your boss to refine it as necessary. Keep it handy in your day planner or as a text file that you set as the default page in your browser, so you see it every time you open a new tab at work. You want to end up with a touchstone that you can pull out when you feel overwhelmed, adrift, or unrewarded.
This kind of list is crucial for anyone whose work doesn't reach regular cycles of completion and congratulation on a weekly or monthly basis. Stick it up on your wall and refer to it whenever you need to decide what you should work on next.
Here's a sample list for someone maintaining a sales team's software demonstration machine:
Have investigated and resolved (or have resolution in progress) on all reported problems with demo server
Have reported status of problems to stakeholders
Am aware of demonstration schedule (to avoid conducting maintenance during demos)
Software on demo server up to date
Server status web page on intranet current with software versions, known issues, and links to demo scripts
Am aware of upcoming software updates, including new examples that will need to be set up
Am aware of technical requirements for upcoming updates, and reported shortcomings to manager with a plan for their correction
Am familiar with products being demonstrated
Am familiar with operating system and hardware being used, particularly with security and backup needs and techniques
Am keeping an eye out for ways to improve workflow for self and coworkers
Am making progress on long-term, nontimebound projects
Am making progress on professional growth goals
Imagine our hypothetical sales engineer after a wild morning of resolving some surprise software issue which cropped up just before an important demo. He's coming up for air, trying to remember on what he had been planning to work today instead of that crisis du jour that fell in his lap.
He shouldn't start by trying to resolve completely everything represented by each email in his inbox. Instead, he should run down the prioritized list of conditions above and do what needs to be done to achieve that state for each one in order.
He's going to scan his inbox and voicemail for any newly reported or unresolved issues on the demo server that require his action. He's going to make sure that he's let the necessary people know where everything stands now, and of any pending actions and who is doing them. He's going to take a quick look at the demo calendar to see if there's anything new for which he needs to prep.
He's going to check the status on development and see if there is new software coming. If so, he will work around the demo calendar to schedule the next software update, again notifying the necessary people and adding any downtime to the calendar. He's going to look to see if he needs or wants to do any other operating system or server maintenance at the time of that update. He's going to take a quick look over the intranet page he maintains and make sure it's current.
Then he can start looking to the nonurgent