If I don't have my organizer with me when someone makes a request (this usually happens when I'm on the way to the men's room), I am very forthright with putting the onus on the requester to make sure her request gets recorded. For example, I'll say, "Gosh, I'm running to a meeting and I really don't want to forget this request. Could you promise to send email to 'help' [which creates a ticket in our request tracking system] that says, 'Glenn. I need x-y-z. Ask Tom for details.'" I know that I have to put the responsibility of remembering the request on my organizer or back on the person making the request. Anything but my brain.
I don't trust my brain to remember stuff. Paper, on the other hand, I trust. Once something is written down, it's there. If I have a list of 10 to do items on a piece of paper I don't have to worry that one might vanish. Disappearing ink is something that only exists in cartoons, and a dog has never eaten my homework.
I also trust PDAs. I do fear a PDA breaking or somehow losing my data, but that's why when I do use one, it gets synced to a file server that is backed up. When compared to the number of times my brain forgets things, PDAs are nearly as reliable as paper.
The Perfect PDA Environment
When PDAs were new and models were few, I worked in an environment that standardized on a particular model. The system administration team would configure the PDA to sync to the user's home directory on the file server. Thus, the user's data was backed up regularly.
When a PDA broke, we had a spare. Slap it into the person's sync cradle and they were back in business instantly. Since everyone had the same PDA, the person would simply keep the spare while we took care of replacing the broken unit.
This was quite luxurious for the PDA users in our group. Today there is more variety in PDA hardware, which makes it more difficult to provide this service, but it can still be approximated with a little coordination.
Why Other Systems Fail
Before I reveal The Cycle System, I want to explain some systems commonly used by system administrators that don't work: The Scattered Notes System and The Ever-Growing To Do List of Doom.
The Scattered Notes System involves writing notes on random bits of paper or having multiple to do lists scattered about. My favorite is when I see a video monitor encircled with yellow rectangular sticky notes. Is each one an action item? A reminder? A phone number? Who knows? What is the priority of these? What if one falls off? There's too much chaos.
When you get assignments at a meeting, you start a new list. Now you are managing two lists. Then you lose one list because it got thrown out with other papers. Now you're missing meetings and failing to meet deadlines. Not a good situation.
The other extreme is The Ever-Growing To Do List of Doom . Usually someone realizes that having many lists or scraps of paper isn't a good way to track things, so he buys a notebook and declares that this will be his one list. No more confusion, right? He diligently carries this notebook everywhere. Any new assignments get written in the notebook, and old tasks get crossed out as they're completed. The process works great at first, but then it starts to break down. It's difficult to prioritize work. Older items get forgotten since our eyes tend to look only at the last (newest) few items.
The most important failure of this system, and why I call it a list of doom, is that it's pretty damn depressing. The list never ends. You work and work and work, and the list never seems to get any shorter! You cross off items that you complete, but new items appear at the end. The number of pages starts to accordion out as you cross off items in the middle, but there's that one item waaaaaay at the beginning that is just never going to get done. Soon you are flipping through pages of crossed-out items to find the one item that isn't crossed out. You feel stressed because you fear missing an incomplete item hidden in pages of crossed-out items.
Worst of all, this is a total self-esteem killer. You never get that big feeling of accomplishment from having completed the list because the list never gets completed. It's the List of Doom.
Newman: I'm a United States postal worker.
George: Aren't those the guys that always go crazy and come back with a gun and shoot everybody?
Newman: Sometimes.
Jerry: Why is that?
Newman: Because the mail never stops. It just keeps coming and coming and coming, there's never a letup. It's relentless. Every day it piles up more and more and more! And you gotta get it out, but the more you get it out, the more it keeps coming in. And then the bar code reader breaks and it's Publisher's Clearing House day!
--Seinfeld, episode #418, "The Old Man"
If The Scattered Notes System is too chaotic and The Ever-Growing To Do List of Doom is too depressing, then The Cycle is, as Goldilocks would say, "just right." It utilizes a device (either PDA or PAA) that you can carry everywhere with the bonus benefit of keeping everything in one place. The Cycle gives you a feeling of completion and accomplishment at the end of each day when you complete the day's list.
Systems That Succeed
I've explained why follow-through is important, that we shouldn't trust our brains, and the qualities of systems that fail. Now I'll explain what makes a system that will succeed.
A good system has the following qualities:
Portable. You can take it everywhere.
Reliable. It remembers everything you need, so you don't have to.
Manageable chunks. Not a million little notes, not one List of Doom.
The elements we need to make a good system are:
Calendar. A place to record recurring meetings, appointments, holidays, and so on.
Life-goals list. A few blank pages to keep our long term goals and other notes.
A day-by-day section. For each day we have:
To do list. A prioritized list just for that day.
Schedule. An hour-by-hour schedule for that day.
The essence of the system is the day-by-day page, which should be big enough for both that day's schedule and that day's to do list. FranklinCovey and Filofax sell stationery like that (see Figure 4-1). Alternatively, you can keep this information in a PDA. We're going to take our organizer with us everywhere we go so that if someone asks us to do something, we can record it right away and not be tempted to scribble it on a slip of paper that will be lost before we can copy it into our PAA/PDA.
The Cycle
The Cycle is the evolution of a system that has worked for me for over 10 years. It's relatively lightweight, yet it includes all the pieces a system administrator needs.