When in Doubt, Make A List
My favorite trick when overwhelmed is to make a list. It’s shocking how many people and projects fail to remember the power of lists. They do so many good things for our psychology, memory and camaraderie it’s worth remembering the adage: Make a (Fucking) List. When in doubt, just make a list. Sit down, shut up and start writing.
The expletive is a reminder not to be a dumbass. Many projects, despite how high-brow and complex everything is, simply needs someone to stand up, go to the whiteboard, and make a list of all the things that need to be done. We convinced ourselves we’re so amazing that if we’re stuck it must require a high powered and complex method to save us, but that’s hubris. A well written list is the fastest way out of most problematic situations (See How to Make Things Happen). It’s true when working alone or with a team.
Since without a list:
It’s harder to make decisions
You can’t compare relative importance of different items
Work can’t be assigned or tracked
You can’t see how big or complex the project really is
It’s harder to share different people’s insights
1. The first task is write a flat, unordered list
Writing things down is powerful. When thoughts are written down you can move them around, compare them, combine them, or divide them as your thinking progresses. If you’re working with others, lists force you to come up with a common language to describe tasks:
Land on Moon
Build Space Rocket
Build Lander Module
Invent triple warp drive
Make spaceship crash proof
Design tasty food to eat in space
Craft space uniforms that make everyone look hot
No matter how big the list is, everyone feels better once the list exists. Hey! You made something! Change of mood or mind starts with small things.
2. Now Thinking Begins
Once there is a list, pivotal questions can be asked: what should be done first? what’s hardest to do? Which thing isn’t understood well enough to know what to do with it?
The list can also be put into order by priority (or cost, or time to finish, or a dozen attributes):
Build Space Rocket
Build Lander Module
Land on Moon
Invent triple warp drive
Make spaceship crash proof
Design tasty food to eat in space
Craft space uniforms that make everyone look hot
It can take hours to debate which things are more important than other things, but once you have a prioritized list you get magic powers: simply by always working from the top down you are guaranteed to always be working on the most important thing, no matter how much work you get done, or how long your list becomes. This means you can stop worrying about the bottom of your list, or how long the list is.
3. Priority 1 and 2
With an ordered list, you can divide between things that must be done (Priority 1) and things that are good, but you can survive without (Priority 2). It can take much thinking to divide a list this way, but once you do, you have clarity. You give yourslef the power to say NO to many things, creating space for the priority 1 things to be done well. You know you should not be working on Priority 2 items until all of the Priority 1 items are finished.
Build Space Rocket
Build Lander Module
Land on Moon
—————————————–
Invent triple warp drive
Make spaceship crash proof
Design tasty food to eat in space
Craft pretty uniforms that make everyone look hot
4. The Big Lesson
When in doubt, make a list. You’ll feel better, I promise.
