Monday, May 13, 2019

 

A "Stop Doing" List Can Help Support Efforts to Undo Crazy Busy Schedules

In a business or even our personal lives, innovation or improvement often fails for the wrong reason.

It is not that the idea is bad. It is just that the idea never had a chance.

Our crazy busy lives are killing our innovation and causing us to be unreceptive to new ideas in our personal lives and our businesses.

How many times have you seen a great idea at work bubble up, and even be met with excitement, only to have it die because no one had time for it after the brainstorming session. When we have packed schedules already, new projects simply die when we try to add them to existing workloads.

That is why I advocate the creation of “stop doing” lists. It is not an idea unique to me. I first learned about this idea in the book “Crazy Busy,” by Kevin Deyoung, but has since seen others reference it as well.

Most of our work schedules do not have free time – especially if we have been at that place of work very long. Adding new activities without eliminating other tasks is a good way to sabotage the innovation. It is also intellectually dishonest.

Repeatedly, new ideas lose out to the demands of the day or the urgency of now.

That is why we need to begin our innovation process by talking about a ‘stop doing’ list before we add things to a ‘start doing’ list. We have to create the capacity or time for innovation first.

What are the barriers to productivity in your place of business? Each of those barriers is an opportunity to be more productive, to ask if the task is still important.

The ‘stop doing’ list should include its best friend and neighbor, the ‘do differently’ list. Together they offer a path toward creating capacity. It takes more than just trimming a few minutes here and there during your day.

Talking with family members or co-workers about tasks that take a lot of time but have very few impacts or are no longer productive or valuable, only traditional, might be a good place to start.

The whole idea is to have these stop-doing conservations so leaders can say no to some activities and say yes to others that could be more productive or impactful.

There is a method to leading a “stop doing” process that can be applied to work groups, organizations of all types, and even with our own families. The key is to identify some changes that free up capacity while realizing there may be some temporary disruption in work.

To begin the process, there are some key questions to ask.

What are the activities that take up the most time in your day and are they essential to the core mission? For the least essential, find alternatives.

What tasks are the most repetitive and least creative or demanding? If not essential, is there something that would be a better use of your time?

Are there aspects of the workflow that could be automated?

What is the highest-value, most productive use of your time in your role? What gets in the way of doing that activity more?

We all have the same 24-hours. There isn’t more time in a day. But we can change how we spend the time we have. Starting with a ‘stop doing’ list faces the reality that there is no more time and it also sets you up for success when you pursue innovative ideas.
 

Impact, not Participation, Matters Most

Every team member gets a medal at the end of the season for participating in most youth sports leagues. The medal merely recognizes participation.

In real life, adults do not get participation medals. What matters for most organizations, businesses and even families, is impact.

Impact goes beyond just participation. Impact means results or at least a strong effect on someone or something that creates a solution or result. In both the adult and business worlds, simply showing up to participate might get you an hourly paycheck but creating a positive impact will get you promoted.

MORE THAN SHOWING UP

We teach children to participate in life, which includes participation in school activities, clubs, and sports. Most times, just “showing up” is all that is expected to be able to say they are participating.

As adults, we also often end up measuring participation. We recount how many meetings or activities we attended. If participation is the standard, then we have set the bar for success very low.

Part of the reason for focusing on participation is because participation is easy. Normally, participation does not require a person to put forth much effort to get credit.

The problem is, we should measure impact or the difference that our participation made. The challenge is that many people have become comfortable with participation.”

The other problem with participation is we expect more than is deserved.

Remember, participation does not guarantee results. You have to set goals and focus on impact to see tangible results. It also requires you to set priorities so you can focus on the high priority items that have the greatest potential of impact.

CREATING IMPACT

Impact does require hard work and dedication. Creating impact often takes times. In fact,  creating impact means we have to set goals and keep focused on them.

I’ve seen the difference between participation and impact in the gym. Just showing up at the gym is better than sitting on the couch. However, I shouldn’t expect a benefit without putting in some effort. Just opening the door to the gym doesn’t help me lose weight.

Simply measuring repetitions and time is just like participation and it does not show impact.

It all starts with a paradigm change. Impact is when you become focused on changing things – like bad habits – to achieve your goals.

Individuals do need participation to have an impact. But the participation needs to lead to impact leading to change.

Impact means something is faster, better, stronger, more efficient, more competitive, improved, and no longer the same.

Impact is about making a difference with our efforts. When we stop accepting participation as the norm and demand impact – positive things begin to occur,.

MORE INFORMATION

Community development specialists with MU Extension help people create communities of the future by tapping into local strengths and university resources. The Community Development Program works collaboratively with communities to foster economic development, leadership development, community decision making, community emergency preparedness and inclusive communities.

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