6 Tell-Tale Symptoms Of A Broken Workflow

Are any of these things part of your normal day-to-day?

1. You are constantly being pulled in a million directions.
2. You are constantly reacting to the "emergency of the day."
3. You are constantly needed for approvals and reviews.
4. You can't get your own work done because you are a slave to others'.
5. You start early and finish late but still can't seem to get everything done.
6. You feel busy all day, but you can't really point to anything specific that you finished at the end of it.

If you experience any one of these on a day-to-day basis, you could be in trouble.

We all experience these symptoms from time to time, but if it happens for too many days (or weeks) in a row, something is broken.Don't panic.It's normal to ebb and flow like this. What's not normal is experiencing these symptoms chronically.

Here are some things you can think/do/remember that will help alleviate these symptoms:

There is always an infinite amount of work to be done--so working harder or longer isn't a feasible long-term solution.Just because it's urgent doesn't mean it's important. Define what's important first, then go after what's important AND urgent.I can admit, it feels good to be needed, but if people can't move forward on their work because they need something from you, YOU are the bottleneck. Your team is counting on your to empower them with the tools and resources to move faster without you overseeing every little thing.Being busy doesn't mean you're productive. Productive means you have a measurable output. Busy is just an "energy consumption" metric that tells you your RPMs.

2 Minute Action:

Here are some options for today.

• Look up the Eisenhower Decision Matrix and use it to prioritize your tasks for today.
• Schedule a "retrospective" with your team, partner, colleagues, or clients. In it, you should ask "what went so well that we should keep doing it?" and "what should we stop doing or could be improved?"
• Create a Scrum board that makes it really clear what is done and what is still being worked on.

It's your responsibility to identify and solve problems in yourself, for your clients, for your patients, for your students, or for your team.Until you train and empower them to, no one else is going to do it for you.

The Best Way To Prioritize Tasks

I learned this from the Eisenhower Decision Matrix and I've used it in many settings.

Is it important?Is it urgent?Will it take 2 minutes or less?Then do it now.

2 Minute Action:

Line up your tasks for today.

1. If a task is important and urgent, give it a [1].
2. If it's important but not urgent, give it a [2].
3. If it's not important but it's urgent, give it a [3].
4. If it's neither important nor urgent, give it a [4].

If it takes 2 minutes or less to do any of these tasks, put a * in front of it.Do all the *[1]s first.

The First Thing To Do When You're Disorganized

You've got more emails.The phone is ringing.Your boss walks in and tells you about 3 things you need to do.. . .Does any of this sound or feel familiar?This is one of those classic cases of "fire of the day" management style.

When I've brought the Agile framework into a new team, the first thing that we do to help alleviate this is 2 fold:

1. We discuss the Eisenhower Decision Matrix
2. We put up a Scrum Board.

The Eisenhower Decision Matrix helps the team prioritize/triage the tasks coming in. It helps them respond and focus on the important stuff instead of trying to react to every loud, shiny alarm bell.Here's a picture I've used before that is easy to follow. Photo credit goes to ArtofManliness.comThe Scrum board puts tasks into three categories: To-Do, Doing, Done."To-Do" (later we'll call it the Backlog) is the place for tasks that we know we need to get done eventually and they might not be super clear or well defined yet."Doing" (later called the Sprint Backlog) is ONLY for the tasks that we know we need to get done in the next week or two. In order for a task to be ready for the sprint, it needs to be prioritized, have a task owner, and it needs to be defined enough that someone can "check the box" and say it's done.The "Done" column is, you guessed it, for completed tasks. This allows the manager to walk in and quality-check everything that's ready to go.Whether you're on a team or not, this structure allows you to take control of all the crises and respond to only the critical ones.The other cool benefit?You feel more calm and collected because you've suddenly got a lot more control over your workflow.

2 Minute Action:

Draw up a scrum board real quick. 3 columns.It can be on a piece of paper, a whiteboard, or on a napkin.Fill it with all the tasks you've got in your face.You will be amazed at how this simple framework will help you categorize and start to prioritize your work.