How to Get Things Done

A couple of years ago I tried the following excercise - In 30 minutes, write down as many things as I could about how to get things done.

This is far from a complete list, just what I could complete during my self imposed time limit, but I think it is pretty useful. I won't go into details in this post, but will probably follow up with additional posts in areas I think warrant it. In fact, one of my previous posts is an expansion on one of the items in this list - Priorities for Tough Decisions.


How to Get Things Done

• Know your values, be consistent
• Do you want to manage or do you want to do?
• How much influence and responsibility do you want?
• How much time are you willing to devote to work?
• What makes you excited to come to work in the morning?
• What do you expect from the people around you?
• Know your strengths and play to them
• Know your weaknesses and pick what needs to be improved and leverage the strengths of people around you
• Know how you react when under pressure – what does ‘unbalanced’ feel like?
• Recognize when it is happening so you can adjust your thinking and become effective again
• Don’t build technology for the sake of technology
• Solve real problems, don’t treat work like a hobby
• When making tradeoffs use the following priority stack
• Company
• Customer
• Product
• Team
• You
• Don’t take it personally – focus on getting the job done, not bruises to your ego
• Set up for success
• Yourself
• Those working for you
• If you know a task is going to fail, change the conditions or abort
• Don’t just hope for success, have a plan that you know will get you there
• If you are in trouble, ask for help
• Don’t be afraid to ask questions
• Even very smart people don’t know everything, those who don’t ask questions are usually scared, not all-knowing
• Beware of experts
• Don’t rely on experts to give you all the answers, do your own searching
• Don’t be a bottleneck
• This is done out of fear of losing control – allow yourself to trust
• Before delegating a task, know the task.
• Do you know how it can be done?
• Do you know what success looks like?
• Do you know level of effort and level of skill required?
• Trailblaze (related to previous)
• Push the limits, learn how to do something, then let others follow behind
• Take risks, don’t be afraid to fail
• Sharpen the axe
• Don’t spend so much time getting things done that you never have time to improve process, tools, methodology, education, etc.
• Postmortem
• At the end of a project/milestone step back and ask how you did, what could go better, what should continue
• Give feedback in real-time
• People respond best to quick feedback – otherwise the connection is lost
• Ask for feedback
• If you aren’t getting feedback ask and ask and ask
• Appreciate praise but seek out criticism
• Be careful of friendships at work
• Do you value the friend or the goal more highly?
• Be honest about your limitations
• If asked to do something you are ill-suited for, explain to your team why you may not be the best choice
  
• But, don’t be afraid to jump in and do it anyway
• Set expectations
• Describe to your manager what you'll be able to accomplish
  
• Describe to those working for you, what you expect from them
• Be explicit about what makes you satisfied, happy, upset, etc. so they know what to expect
  
• Hire for a role not for a personality
• Don’t hire someone and then try to fit that person in to your organization.
• Instead perform a gap analysis – know what you need, define a position, then look for the individual who represents the best fit.
• Know how others see you
• Are you a leader?
• Are you effective?
• Are you valued on the team?
• Know your manager's priorities and how he is being evaluated for success
  
• If your priorities misalign with management then:
• Change your priorities
  
• Or influence your manager to change their priorities
• Or leave for a position that aligns better
• Bring something to the table
• In any relationship – team, coworker, company – know what value you bring
• Dig into cracks
• Look for signs of a problem in results or assumptions
• Dig into the problem until you fully understand it
• Know your long-term goals
• Know where you want to be in 5 years so your current decisions have a long-term purpose.
• Keep your options open
• When making a decision that balances short term gain for long term flexibility lean toward long term flexibility
• Know who your friends and enemies are
• Who can you trust, who is competing with you, who wants you dead
• Understand the root cause of objections raised by others
  
• Are they based in reality?
  
• Are they based on perceived threat?
  
• Are they based on misinformation?
• Reality vs. perception
• Know what is real
• Know what is the common perception
• Know that perception will win over reality in group opinion
• Be pragmatic
• Do what it takes to achieve your goals without conflicting with your values.
• Don’t be too idealistic or rigid in your approach

My Related Posts

• How To Be an Effective Leader
• Priorities for Tough Decisions