In the 20th century, people's lives and work went according to plan. At work (simplifying - you can imagine a factory) people had a clear plan for the week, for the month, for the year ahead. Simplifying: you need to cut out 20 parts. No one will come and say that the details now need to be cut out 37, and in addition, write an article with reflections on why the shape of these details is exactly the way it is - and preferably yesterday.
In everyday life, people were about the same: force majeure was a real force majeure. There are no cell phones, a friend can’t call you and ask you to “immediately come to help solve the problem”, you live in one place almost all your life (“moving like a fire”), and you generally thought to help your parents “come in December for a week”.
Under these conditions, a cultural code has formed where you feel satisfied if you have completed all the tasks. And it was real. Failure to complete all tasks is a deviation from the norm.
Now everything is different. The intellect has become a tool of labor, and in work processes it is necessary to use it in different guises. A modern manager (especially a top manager) goes through dozens of different types of tasks throughout the day. And most importantly, a person cannot manage the number of “incoming messages”. New tasks can cancel old ones, change their priority, change the very setting of old tasks. Under these conditions, it is practically impossible to form a plan in advance and then carry it out in stages. You can’t say “I’ll plan for next week” to the task that arrived “we have an urgent request from the tax office, we need to answer today, otherwise a fine.”
How to live with it - so that there is time for a life outside of work? And is it possible to apply some working management algorithms in everyday life? 3 months ago, I radically changed the entire system of setting goals and monitoring them. I want to tell you how I came to this and what happened in the end. The play will be in 2 parts: in the first - a little about, so to speak, ideology. And the second is entirely about practice.
It seems to me that the problem for us is not that there are much more tasks. The problem is that our socio-cultural code is still set to perform "every task scheduled for today." We worry when plans break down, we worry when we do not fulfill everything that was planned. At the same time, schools and universities still function within the framework of the previous code: there is a set set of lessons, there are clearly planned home tasks, and a model is formed in the child’s head that assumes that life will continue to be like this. If you imagine a hard version, then in real life, in your English lesson, they start talking about geography, the second lesson takes an hour and a half instead of forty minutes, the third lesson is canceled, and in the fourth, in the middle of the lesson, your mother calls you and urgently asks you to buy and bring groceries home.
This socio-cultural code makes a person hope that it is possible to change the incoming flow - and in this way to improve their lives, and the life described above is not normal, because there is no clear plan in it.
This is the main problem. We need to realize and accept that we cannot control the number of incoming messages, we can only control how we treat it and how we actually process incoming messages.
Do not worry about the fact that more and more requests for changes in plans arrive: we no longer work on machines (with rare exceptions), letters do not go by month (yes, I'm an optimist), and the landline phone has become an anachronism. Therefore, it is necessary to change the process of processing messages, and to accept the current life as it is, and to realize that the old socio-cultural code does not work.
What can we do to make it easier? It is very difficult to “make a good website”, but with a clear technical task (or at least with a clearer description of the task at hand), it becomes much easier to achieve the right result (and, in general, to achieve at least some result).
The best example is mine, so I'll try to decompose my desires. I clearly understand what is wrong with the processing of life and work plans: now it’s “bad”, but I want it to become “good”.
What is "bad" and "good" at a "high" level of decomposition?
Bad: I feel anxious because I am not sure that I can do everything that I promised to do to other people or myself, I get upset because I can’t get to the things that I planned for a long time, because they have to be postponed or because of burning tasks, or they are too difficult to approach; I can’t do everything that is interesting, because work and life take up most of my time, it’s bad because I can’t devote time to family and rest. A separate point: I am not in constant context switching mode, from which, in many respects, all of the above occurs.
Good: I don’t feel anxiety because I know what I’ll be doing in the near future, the absence of this anxiety allows me to spend my free time better, I don’t feel a regular feeling of fatigue (the word “constant” is not suitable for me, it’s just regular), I do not have to twitch and switch to any incoming communications.
In general, much of what I have described above can be summed up in a simple phrase: "reducing uncertainty and uncertainty."
Thus, the technical task becomes something along the lines of:
- Modifying the processing of incoming tasks so that the context is switched.
- Working with a task setting system so that at least current affairs and ideas are not forgotten and someday they are processed.
- Setting the predictability of tomorrow.
Before I change anything, I must understand what I can change and what not.
A difficult and huge task is to understand and recognize that I cannot change the incoming stream itself, and this stream is a part of my life in which I ended up of my own free will; The pros of this life outweigh the cons.
Perhaps, at the first level of solving the problem, you should think: do you even want the place in life in which you find yourself, or do you want something else? And if it seems to you that you want something else, then perhaps it is worth working out exactly this with a psychologist / psychoanalyst / psychotherapist / guru / call them by any name - this question is so deep and serious that I will not go here.
So, I am where I am, I like it, I have a company of 100 people (I always wanted to do business), I do interesting work (this is interaction with people, including to achieve work goals - and I have always been interested in “social engineering” and technology), a business built on “problem solving” (and I always liked being a “fixer”), I feel good at home. I like it here, with the exception of the “side effects” listed in the “bad” part.
Given that this is the life I like, I can't change (with the exception of task delegation, discussed below) the incoming stream, but I can change how it's handled.
How? I am a supporter of the concept that it is necessary to go from less to more - first solve the most painful, while problems that can be solved by simple changes, and step towards greater changes.
All the changes that I have made can be summarized in three directions; I will list them from simple (for me) changes to complex ones:
1. Processing and saving tasks.
I have never been able to properly (and still can’t) keep paper diaries, write down and formulate a task - a very difficult task for me, and regularly sitting in some kind of task tracker is so very difficult.
I accepted it, and my main concept was that the things that I have in my head are the most important.
My tasks were processed in the following way:
- the task I remember about is to complete it as soon as my hands reach;
- an incoming task - if done quickly, complete as soon as received, if done for a long time - promise that I will do it;
- tasks that I forgot about - do only when they are reminded.
This was more or less normal for a certain amount of time, until “tasks that I forgot about” turned into a problem.
This has become a problem in two ways:
- Almost every day, forgotten tasks arrived that needed to be done today (the hardcore that I finished off was an SMS from bailiffs about writing off money from accounts for a traffic police fine before flying to the States and an urgent need to figure out if they would let me fly at all).
- A huge number of people consider it incorrect to ask again about the request and leave it to themselves. People are offended that you forgot something if it is a personal request, and if it is a work request, it eventually turns into a fire that needs to be done today (see point one).
Something had to be done about this.
No matter how unusual we were, I began to write down all the cases. In general, everything. I was lucky to think of it myself, but in general, the whole idea is very similar to the concept .
The first step was simply unloading all the cases from my head into the simplest system for me. She turned out : the interface is very fast, the procedure for creating a task is minimal in time, there is a simple app on the phone (I then switched to Todoist, but more on that in the second, technical part).
Thank God, I’ve been doing IT management in one way or another for 10 years and I understand that “creating an application” is a doomed task, just like “going to the doctor”. Therefore, I began to break tasks into decomposed tasks in the form of actions.
I clearly understand that I am a person who is very dependent on positive feedback, which I can give myself in the form of feedback “look how much you did today” (if I see it). Therefore, the task of "going to the doctor" turns into the tasks of "choose which doctor to go to", "choose the time when you can go to the doctor", "call and make an appointment". At the same time, I don’t want to strain myself: each of the tasks can be done on one of the days of the week and be satisfied that you have already passed some stage in the task.
Key point: decomposition of tasks and recording tasks in the form of short actions.
As long as the task is in your head, as long as you think that it must be completed sometime, you will not be calm.
If it has not yet been written down, and you have forgotten it, you will be tormented when you remember it and remember that you forgot.
This applies to all matters, including household ones: leaving for work and on the way remembering that you forgot to throw out the trash is not at all cool.
These experiences are simply unnecessary. So I started writing down everything.
The goal is that, having trained in yourself to upload all (absolutely all) cases to any tracker, the next step is to start to stop thinking about the recorded cases in your head.
When you understand that everything you thought about doing is written down and sooner or later you will get to it, for me personally, anxiety goes away.
You stop twitching from the fact that in the middle of the day you remember that you wanted to change the light bulbs in the hallway, talk to an employee or write a document (and immediately rush to write it).
By minimizing the number of forgotten (in this context, unrecorded) tasks, I minimize the anxiety that arises when I remember these most forgotten tasks.
You can’t write down and remember everything, but if earlier there were 100 such tasks, then by a certain moment there are 10 of them, and there are simply fewer “incidents” of anxiety.
Key point: we write down everything, everything in general, even if we are sure that we will remember.
I can’t remember everything: no matter how stupid it sounds, I write down everything, right down to “walking the dog.”
What did I decide in this way? The anxiety from the fact that I was constantly afraid to forget something decreased (I went over plans, promise tasks, etc.) in my head, and in general, the unnecessary switching in my head about “thinking about what else I could promise” disappeared.
2. Decreased reactivity.
We cannot reduce the influx, but we can change the way we respond to it.
I have always been a reactive person and got a buzz from it, immediately answered a person’s request to do something on the phone, tried to immediately complete the task set in life or in everyday life, in general, I was as fast as possible, I felt the buzz from this. This is not a problem, but it becomes a problem when such a reaction turns into an instinct. You stop distinguishing where you are really needed right now, and where people can wait.
The problem is that negative feelings are also developed from this: firstly, if I didn’t have time to do something or forgot that I promised to respond, I was again very upset, but this was not critical individually. It became critical at the moment when the number of tasks that I wanted to instantly instinctively respond to became more than the physical possibilities to do it.
I began to learn not to react to things right away. At first it was just a purely technical solution: for any incoming request “please do it”, “please help”, “let's meet”, “let's call”, I became the first the task is simply to process this incoming request and schedule when I will fulfill it. That is, the first task in the tracker is not the task to do what was asked, but the task “to read tomorrow what Vanya wrote in the telegram, and understand if I can do it and when I can do it, if I can.” The most difficult thing here is to fight with instincts: a huge number of people by default ask for a quick reaction, and if you are used to living in the rhythm of such a reaction, you feel uncomfortable if you did not immediately answer the person’s request.
But a miracle happened: it turns out that 9 out of 10 people who ask to do something “yesterday” may well wait until “tomorrow” when you get to their case, if you just told them that you will get to it tomorrow. This, along with writing things down and keeping promises to get there, makes life so much easier that you start to feel like you are now living in a structured plan (and perhaps you are). Of course, a lot of training is needed, but, in fact, in conditions where you have adopted such a rule for yourself, you can quickly learn this. And this to a large extent solves the problems of context switching and failure to fulfill the set plans. I try to set all new tasks for tomorrow, I also set all requests that I reacted to reactively for tomorrow, and already “tomorrow” in the morning I figure out what can be done with it and when. Plans for "today" become less floating.
3. Prioritization and fixing sudden cases.
As I said at the beginning, I admitted to myself that the flow of tasks each day is more than I can handle. The set of reactive tasks still remains. Therefore, every morning I deal with the tasks set for today: which ones really need to be done today, which ones can be moved to tomorrow morning, in order to decide when they should be done, which ones should be delegated, and which ones can be thrown out altogether. But the matter is not limited to this.
Huge frustration arises when in the evening you realize that you have not done the critical tasks planned for today. But most often this occurs because unplanned matters arose today, to which, despite the maximum efforts to delay the reaction, it was necessary to react today. I began to write down all the things that I did today, immediately after I did them. And in the evening I looked at the list of completed tasks. A lawyer came in to talk - he wrote it down, the client called - he wrote it down. There was an accident to which it is necessary to respond - wrote it down. I called the car service and said that the car should be brought today so that it could be repaired by Sunday, - I wrote it down. This allows me to both understand why I didn’t get to the tasks set for today and not worry about it (if the sudden tasks were worth it), and fix where I could process incoming tasks less reactively (tell the service that I’m not succeeding and I I will bring the car only tomorrow, and find out that it will still be possible to do it by Sunday, even giving it back tomorrow). I try to write down absolutely all the work done, down to “signed two papers from the accounting department” and a minute conversation with a colleague.
4. Delegation.
The most difficult topic for me. And here I am even more glad to receive than to give advice. I'm just learning how to do it right.
The problem with delegation is the organization of delegation processes. Where these processes are built, we easily transfer tasks. Where the processes are not debugged, delegation seems either too long (compared to when you do the task yourself), or simply impossible (no one but me can definitely complete this task).
This lack of processes creates a block in my head: the thought that it is possible to delegate a task does not even occur to me. Just a couple of weeks ago, when I decided to switch from Trello to Todoist, I caught myself transferring tasks from one system to another for three hours without even thinking that someone else could do it.
The main experiment for me now is to overcome my own block of asking people to do something in cases where I am sure that they will not agree or do not know how to do it. Take the time to explain. Accept that things will take longer to get done. If you share your experience, I will be very happy.
Traps
All of the above changes are described by quite technical recommendations for working with software, which I will write about in the next part, and in the conclusion of this one - about two traps that I fell into during this whole reorganization of my life.
The concept of fatigue.
In view of the fact that we are working not physically, but mentally, a huge and unexpected problem arises - to understand and catch the moment when you start to get tired. This makes it possible to take a break in time.
The conditional worker behind the machine did not have such a problem in principle. Firstly, the feeling of physical fatigue is understandable to us from childhood, and besides, it is quite difficult to continue to do something physically when the body is not capable of it. We can’t, after doing 10 sets in the gym, do 5 more “because it’s necessary”. This motivation won't work for obvious biological reasons.
With thinking, the situation is somewhat different: we do not stop thinking. I have not crossed this area, but in general the hypotheses are as follows:
- A person who is in a constant frenzy does not immediately notice mental fatigue. It doesn’t happen in the form of “I can’t think anymore, I’ll lie down” - first it affects the emotional spectrum, the ability to think, then perception, only somewhere here you can feel what has come.
- In order to switch off from the flow, it is not enough just to stop doing work. I noticed that if I, for example, stop working, lie down and stare at the phone, I read, watch and still the brain continues to work, fatigue does not let go. It really helps to lie down and force yourself to do nothing at all (including poking at the phone). For the first 10 minutes it is very difficult to get out of the flow of activity, for the next 10 minutes a million ideas come to mind on how to do everything right, but then it’s already clean.
It is important and necessary to give the brain a rest, and since it is very difficult to catch this moment, you just need to do it regularly.
Time for rest/life/family.
I, as I already wrote, am a person dependent on positive feedback, but I can generate it myself: this is both a bonus and a problem.
From the moment I started tracking all the tasks, I praise myself for the completed ones. At some point, I went from the state of "settled my work life" to the state of "now I'm a superhero and I can do maximum things", having reached 60 tasks a day.
I balanced work and household chores and made sure to include household chores in my daily list, but the problem is that these are chores. And you need time for rest and family.
The worker is kicked out of the shop at 6 o'clock, and the entrepreneur also gets a buzz when he works. It turns out to be about the same problem as with the inability to catch the moment of “mental fatigue”: in the high of the completed tasks, you forget that you actually need to live.
Falling out of the stream when everything works out and you catch the buzz from it is very difficult, you also have to force yourself.
Fatigue comes not from a desire to “lie down”, but from a disorder of emotions (“everything infuriates from the very morning”), the complexity of perceiving information and a deterioration in the ability to switch contexts.
It is critically important to allocate time for rest, even if it is very bummer. It is important that this does not affect you later. It's not cool to enjoy your performance for two months, and then be in a state where everything is fucked up and you can't see people.
After all, we live not only for productivity, there are a huge number of interesting and amazing things in the world 😉
By and large, such considerations are, in general, worth (re)organizing work and non-work processes. In the second part I will talk about what tools I used for this and what results I managed to achieve.
PS This topic turned out to be so important for me that I even started a separate telegram channel where I share my thoughts on this matter, join -
Source: habr.com