Tools for Thought

Many activities can be batched, not just repetitive ones. We have context lists that group like activities by the location or resource required — an @Computer list for tasks requiring a computer, an @Home list for tasks that can only be done at home, and so on. We can batch the processing of paperwork and email into discrete sessions of minimal frequency — twice per workday, for instance.

We can also batch our discussions with individuals. Instead of walking over to a coworker’s desk every time we come across an issue that needs to be discussed, we can take a moment to evaluate the urgency of the matter, and in the likely event that it’s actually not an emergency, batch it in a running track of issues that accumulate during the day.

Create a list called Agendas, with the names of everyone with whom you need to discuss non-emergency issues, then list the topics within each of those entries

Agendas is another list among the others to track in your system: Next Actions (Context Lists), Projects, Waiting For and Someday/Maybe. While the latter ones are flat lists, the Agendas list is nested. In an electronic organizer, each person’s name is a line item in Agendas, and each line item has a note attachment, within which the issues are added.

If you maintain a list with only a few people, an alternative to a nested list is simply having a separate flat list for each individual — @John, @Susan, etc. — then make each issue a line item. This is a good way to manage agendas if you’re using a paper-based system. Depending on the nature of your work, it may be a better idea to use an Agendas folder instead of just a list. This allows you to have any support documents relevant to the conversations right at hand.

Potential Problems

Beware. When batching several topics into one conversation, the other person — not accustomed to consolidated discussions — may dislike the perceived additional time it takes. Despite the obvious fact that interrupting someone 12 times a day takes more time than handling 12 topics in one sitting, many people are so used to asking and answering question at a time that an agendas list will seem like a burden.

Just because you have all topics in one list doesn’t mean that you necessarily have to cross everything off the list in a single discussion. There’s a point of diminishing returns where efficiency and effectiveness diverge. You may only get to work off a few topics at a time before the other person has to return or move on to some other task. Pick the highest priority items on the list that you can fit in his or her window of time, and do the best you can.

In some cases, all you have to do is point out the advantage of handling everything at once: “I could see that you were busy, and I didn’t want to keep interrupting you, so I decided to these things until we both had time to talk.”

Finally, reevaluate your list, and see if there aren’t some items where another communication channel might be better suited, like IM, email, Twitter or a wiki — especially for status updates. The less interaction you need, the better the chances are that using these media would be a less time consuming and disruptive way to keep people in the loop.