Do you use the 3-pile method of sorting incomplete tasks? Many of my new clients do. Here’s how it works: the first pile is made of the tasks and projects that you absolutely have to get to right away. The second pile is made of the things that were in the first pile last month, but you didn’t actually get to. The third pile is made of the things that were in the second pile last month. At the end of each month, you dump the third pile in the garbage, slide everything over one notch and start again. Very efficient, right?
In reality, completion of open cycles is an ongoing challenge for most professionals today. There are better ways than the 3-pile method listed above. Here are some basic rules for keeping yourself on top of your tasks and your projects.
Rule #1
In any business, cycles of action are opened anytime you have an interaction with any customer. The routine purchase of a product or service is a cycle of action, in the broadest sense. So, opening a new cycle of action is routine and necessary, not something to be avoided. The problems arise in the closing, not the opening.
Rule #2
Incomplete cycles of action are damaging to a normally functioning business system. An incomplete cycle can come from a delayed or inconclusive decision, lack of cohesion or agreement in a team, losing information, work overload, incorrect priorities, etc. Incompletion causes delays, certainly, but it also causes decreases in energy, accomplishment and satisfaction in the workplace. It can get to the point where a vicious cycle develops: “I’m too far behind to spend any time figuring out how to get better organized.”
Rule #3
When completion of cycles of action involve more than one employee, the effect quickly multiples and can completely logjam a system. Inability to get a bottom line result due to incompletion from another employee can cause loss of morale and HR problems and increase internal focus, rather than focus on the customer.
Rule #4
Most incompletions can be addressed if time management and prioritization protocols are designed and followed. It’s a matter of finding out where the upstream error are and addressing those.
There are hundreds of examples of this in a practice that can occur each day. A simple example: the new patient forgets some information on the intake form, and the front desk does not catch it (does not complete this step). The patient is consulted with and examined in the usual fashion. When the billing department enters the information into the billing program, there are pieces missing, so the bill cannot be sent. The file gets sent to a pending box, waiting the next patient visit. We can just get it on the next visit, not a big deal, right? What if the patient does not return for care, or the contact information is wrong, etc. We now have an unpaid file, and something must be done to correct this, taking time from the manager to specially handle what should have been routine or automatic.
What can be done to improve this situation?
Step #1
If you’re in a hole, stop digging! Stop creating more incompletions as part of your system. This means looking at your service or product production as a flow, not a set of isolated events. Most processes will have a rate limiting factor, or a place where completion is slower or tougher. Start there.
Step#2
Using the flow analogy, find the furthest “upstream” error or stopping point in your system. Facilitating or opening this area will give you fewer incomplete or damaged tasks downstream. If we stop dumping pollution upstream, we do not have to build a purification plant downstream. This will sometimes be a feature of the workload or system itself, or it may be personnel driven. It may be the wrong person on the job, to many distractions, etc.
Step#3
Create administrative time to complete backlogged tasks and projects. Most of the time these things cannot be effectively handled during normal workflow time. If they could be, they would not have backed up in the first place.
There are several other features to this, which will be addressed in future blogposts.