About the most common management advice I have both had, and been given over 40 years goes something like:

“Have a To Do list, update daily, and stick to it”

Many variations, but basically make a list, ensure the list is up to date, relevant, and helps manage your most valuable resource, Time.

I have always struggled with the “list idea” despite knowing the value, trying hard, and advocating it to others. Problem seems to be threefold:

1. Short attention span,
2. Curiosity,
3. Connecting dots.

My more picky friends and colleagues have always accused me of having the attention span of a mozzie on speed, and being overly curious about all sorts of things, often unconnected directly with the task at hand. However, having been picky in those two areas, they also concede that the best stuff I come up with is usually when I connect otherwise unconnected ideas, things, or people in some unpredictable way.

Somebody I know vaguely, and ran into in a cafe last week has always had a similar problem, which he has solved, he tells me with a very simple strategy, that also relies on a list.

A  “Don’t you bloody dare” list.

A list of things stuck on the wall of his home-office that commonly distract him, from looking at emails immediately the inbox “pings” to having an “excuse” not to make that difficult phone call, not completing a task he has set out to do just because the result is not due for another few days, to just staring out the window.

It is a simple hand written list, using his own brand of  the vernacular, and he swears by it, reckons it has increased his productivity by 25%.

Sounds like a great idea to me.

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