Figure 1. Four practices of commitment management: 1-tracking, 2-selecting, 3-executing, 4-capacity planning.
time
money
material
personnel
4
now
world
delegated
results
execute
3
importance
queued
1
mission
2
“implement a software tool”). Allen
says to sort the incoming items into
trash (ignore and delete), possibly useful (save in tickler file), reference (save
in reference file), and actionable. You
do actionable items immediately if
they require two minutes or less (for
example, a quick answer to an email
message); otherwise you enqueue
them in your to-do list and calendar,
or you delegate them. You review your
queues periodically to see if your delegations have completed and the orderings of lists reflects your current priorities. Once an item is in this system,
you do not have to think about it and
your mind is clear to focus on the tasks
needing completion.
This story is incomplete in three
ways. ( 1) It does not address the possibility of controlling the flow of stuff.
( 2) It does not make explicit that much
of the stuff originates with you and
your teams as you design actions to
fulfill your own commitments. And
( 3), it does not deal with limitations
on your capacity and the mood of overwhelm when you are beyond capacity.
These three aspects take us to the next
three practices.
Trump the Urgent
With the Important
Stephen Covey has discussed at length
the notion of controlling what commitments you enter or decline. 2 The
central question is: what exactly do
you commit to? Covey maintains that
the answers come from having a clear
sense of mission. Just as organizations
have mission statements, individuals
should have personal mission statements. We can ignore requests that
do not serve our mission, and we can
(politely) ask the people making them
to leave us alone. Covey counsels each
of us to write down a mission statement, including our ongoing personal
and professional commitments. Then
we arrange our calendars to make sure
that we allocate time sufficient for each
major commitment.
Covey argues that good mission
statements help people distinguish
important requests from urgent re-
quests. Many people find themselves
overwhelmed with urgent but unim-
portant requests that consume all their
time. This is a double whammy—they
are frustrated at being unable to find
time for the important things and ex-
asperated over the sheer number of ur-
gent, time-wasting requests. The irony
is that many urgent requests are the re-
sult of previously neglected important
tasks. For example, if you make sure
you give excellent service to your cus-
tomers, you will not spend a lot of time
answering complaints.