The problem
Have you ever noticed how at the end of the week, despite all the effort you put in, you don’t seem to have achieved any significant results? It’s as if you’ve been “doing nothing” all along, even though you’ve tried to solve work-related issues. You’ve helped colleagues, responded to all emails, attended important meetings, and even contributed to the team’s success, but somehow you’re not satisfied with the outcome.
Like many others, you may be experiencing what I call a lack of focus. All your time seems to be consumed by urgent, current problems, and operational tasks keep you busy. Additionally, someone else is constantly trying to distract you with important issues. This routine can be overwhelming.
Cyril Northcott Parkinson, in his article, wrote: “Work takes all the time allocated for it.” This phrase has become one of the three laws of Parkinson’s. We will definitely return to these laws later, but for now, let’s focus on this statement. Its meaning is easy to understand: if you say you can do something in one day, you will spend all day doing it.
Speaking about routine tasks, I would like to say that if we decide we need to solve operational problems and don’t limit the time for this, all our time will be consumed by solving these “emergency” issues, instead of focusing on what’s really important and leading us to results. So, what should we do?
Solution
As with many things in our lives, there is no one right answer. We all have different personalities and habits, so it’s important to find what works best for us. Some people prefer to use a physical diary, while others keep everything in their heads. Some people like to tackle important tasks all at once, while others prefer to leave them for later, like students before an exam.
I can only share my approach and hope it might be helpful. So, how do you stay focused and achieve your goals? The answer is both simple and complex. The key to success is proper goal setting and time management. It’s about constantly returning to your goals and allocating specific time to work towards them, leaving less productive hours for other tasks or delegating them.
One day, I read an article titled “The 37signals Guide to Internal Communication”, which described, among other things, questions that team members answer periodically. These questions aim to create focus and reflection on the time spent and results achieved by employees in a week. I believe this is a great example of steering towards a goal, and since then, I have been trying to answer these questions myself.
The questions I ask myself are:
- What will I be doing this week?
- What have I done today?
Additionally, I ask:
- What do I want to achieve in the month/quarter?
The most important thing when it comes to work is to have a plan and goals for the medium-term. First, we need to determine where we need to go in order to understand whether we have reached our goal or not later. Imagine workers who are drilling a tunnel through a mountain. In order to speed up the process, they decide to start from different sides and meet in the middle. However, they haven’t yet agreed on where that middle is. A month later, the tunnels didn’t meet, even though they were supposed to. If both teams had a clear understanding of the goal and shared vision, things could have turned out differently.
For a month, goals shouldn’t be a long list - in practice, two or three of the most significant ones are usually enough. For example, launching a feature, coordinating the architecture, introducing a new process, etc. These goals are big enough to be accomplished in time and produce results in one to two weeks, yet they can be achieved within a month.
When the medium-term goals have been established, it’s time to move on to planning.
Weekly plans
Each week, at the beginning, I start by creating a vision of what I want to achieve this week: a list of tasks that need to be done and arranged in order of importance. You can prioritize tasks as you see fit, using tools like the Eisenhower Matrix, MoSCoW, Getting Things Done, and others. The key thing to remember is that the tasks should help you move towards achieving your higher goals in addition to other less significant tasks.
For instance, for the goal of “coordinating the service architecture,” your list might include:
- Describe the change plan by the end of Tuesday
- Create sequence diagrams for the proposed service and environment
- Submit the first version for review and approval on Wednesday - Friday
These deadlines are important, as they help to keep the project on track and prevent it from becoming overly prolonged. It’s also a good idea to estimate how long each task will take in order to make sure you have enough time to complete them.
The main points of the plan are now ready. You may want to add other tasks that are less significant, but still important, such as summarizing the sprint or closing any pending pull requests. With this plan in place, you should be able to manage your workload effectively and meet your goals.
Daily routine
The simplest, yet no less important aspect, is on which success in achieving global goals often hinges. After all, even weekly tasks cannot always be completed from start to finish in one go, let alone monthly plans. Henry Ford said: “Nothing is particularly difficult if you break it down into small tasks”, and he knew the importance of breaking down unmanageable tasks into smaller, more manageable ones. In our case, we need to divide the voluminous work into smaller stages, if you will, which will be easier to complete during the day. This allows us to focus on the overall goal, while also allowing us to switch to other tasks that make up our job, such as responding to chat messages, attending team meetings, or conducting code reviews.
Perhaps this level of detail is unnecessary for you, as you don’t need such a comprehensive breakdown.
Tools
Your brain was designed to generate ideas, not to store them. © David Allen.
Our brains are best at analyzing information, a skill that humans have been actively using throughout history, and thanks to this skill, we owe our development to it. However, since ancient times, people have developed various methods to store information, from clay tablets and birch bark scrolls to silicon blocks in the Silica project (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/project/project-silica).
There are many tools available for managing and organizing plans, such as paper diaries, digital notebooks, and various AI assistants.
I use note-taking applications such as Craft for weekly and monthly planning. For me, it is the most convenient option, as it allows me to keep both regular lists and set tasks, as well as take daily notes. In addition, it is simply beautiful.
I have a separate folder where I store quarterly and weekly plans. Quarterly plans are presented in the form of a list sorted by priority. Each item in the list is a link to a page that contains detailed information about the task, the desired outcome, and the steps required to achieve it. Weekly plans are presented as a simple document with a checklist of the main tasks to be completed.
You may also want to check out other apps like Agenda and NotePlan, or maybe you’ll like Todoist, Trello, or Microsoft To Do. The market for productivity apps is vast, and there’s sure to be something that suits your needs.
Final thoughts
How was your week? What did you accomplish? What tasks were postponed? These and other self-reflective questions are an essential part of working on yourself if you want to improve. Set aside some time for yourself at the end of the week, when no one will disturb you, and reflect on your work: what did you do, and did you move closer to your goal, and where did you face difficulties or urgent issues that prevented you from moving faster? By reflecting on ourselves, we can be honest and understand the true reasons for our success and failure, which means we can allow ourselves to become better.
Finally, I want to add that this is just my personal experience, and it may not work for everyone. But if improving results is something that matters to you and you want to become a better professional, and especially a manager, I highly recommend giving it a try.