The Best (Im)Perfect Management System
Escape the unachievable Promise of Perfect Productivity!
Welcome to All the Tasks Fit to Print, my weekly newsletter on all issues productivity-related for authors (and other solopreneurs)!
As a productivity coach, I'm often called in as a last resort. I don't take it personally! In fact, I'm happy to be the last resort. It means that my client has tried everything else, and I admire that kind of tenacity.
What I usually find, coming in "at last," is that they were trying to find the wrong solution.
Since their problem is that their business (or life in general) is chaotic, they assume that the solution is to make it as organized as possible. It’s a fairly reasonable conclusion, and it’s certainly the advice they get whenever they do an internet search for “how do I reduce overwhelm and increase productivity???”
They try out a variety of apps (Monday, Asana, Clickup, Trello) and different types of systems (GTD™, Eat the Frog, Start Finishing, HB90) and countless spreadsheets (Oh! The SPREADSHEETS!). Nothing is perfect, and in fact nothing seems to organize the chaos at all. They scrap what they've cobbled together and try out something new, still wallowing in the unfinished tasks they started with and feeling even worse about it.
Unfortunately, what they've run up against is the unachievable Promise of Perfect Productivity. It's the idea that if they find the best planner or app or system, everything will click into place and become organized. Tasks will get done with time to spare. Utopia!!!!
Alas, that rarely happens.
What is the solution they really need, then?
It depends on the actual problems they are having. “Chaos” is a symptom, not the source of the trouble.
So then it's time for me to step in and ask: What are the specific pain points?
Often they can only give me general answers. So instead of asking general questions, I assign them homework: a process audit.
It is the best and most comprehensive way to narrow in on what the actual problems are. A process audit is simple to do, on the surface of it: you (and everyone on your team, if you have one) write out everything you do, step by step, for a whole damn week. It’s aggravating and distracting and everyone hates doing it, but it will make it very clear where the fault lines in your project management exist. Sorry-not-sorry, but you gotta do it.
Word of caution for employers: If you have employees, make it clear that this is not their performance evaluation. It is very easy to turn a process audit into a witch hunt, which will negatively affect both morale and productivity (trust me, pulling out of that downward spiral is nearly impossible once it starts). When you do a process audit, go in with the assumption that employee non-productivity is due to a systems failure, not an individual’s inefficiency. Use a process audit to encourage cooperation by explaining that the goal is to make their work easier and improve productivity by making the tasks and roles they take on less frustrating. This is no time to be punitive; this is the time to pull everyone in to work together!
Advice for neurospicy brains: I know if you have ADHD or processing disorders of any kind, this whole concept is either terrifying, impossible, or both. If being able to concentrate enough to write out every step as you are doing it was just that easy, you'd likely not be in this situation to begin with, amirite amirite?!?!? That said, you are still in the place of needing to know what the core problem(s) is/are for you, which might be things like overcommitting, lack of preparation, or time blindness. This post is all about finding out what that problem is. For instance, if you are always running late to meetings, is that due to over commitment (too much on your schedule), or is it due to time blindness (you can't follow a schedule)? The solutions to your problem will vary wildly depending on the core issue! If you can't pin that answer down, this is a good time to call on a friend or colleague to help you by "body doubling" on major tasks/goals. Make it clear that you are not asking them to solve the problem(s) for you or to give you advice! Their role is to play objective zoologist to your neurospicy wildlife and simply document what happens when you are trying to organize your schedule or accomplish certain tasks. It might feel weird to be observed like that, but remember that your goal is to collect a set of data points to work from! In the end, it doesn't matter how you get that information, just that you do.
Once you have a comprehensive outline of all the processes and tasks required for all your projects (or close enough), organize them by groups and/or systems. This will give you a clear picture of where things are falling apart.
Some business examples:
Onboarding team members (training takes forever)
Team (mis)communications (things getting lost in email chains, etc.)
Data tracking/asset management (where is the thing and what stage is it at?)?
Production delays (deadlines are missed, materials not ordered on time)
Overburdened leadership (inability or unwillingness to delegate)
And everyone’s least favorite reason:
You.
It might be depressing to discover that you are, in fact, the weak link in the system, but that is not uncommon. Even if you are a solopreneur, you are still working within a network of people who are supporting you (especially if you hire freelancers to do work for you), and after all you are the person tasked with making something out of the chaos. Independent creatorpreneurs (I hate that word, but whatev) know this all too well, when creativity blocks and procrastination get in the way of hitting deadlines or delivering products.
No, it's not fun to see how you are your own worst enemy, but remember that the goal is not to place blame. The goal is to understand the underlying reasons why, whether that is due to an inability to say "no" to people/projects, an underlying health issue, or imposter syndrome.
At this point, and ONLY at this point, when you have identified the core problem(s), is it time to look for solutions.
Don’t look for the perfect solution, though! Instead what you need is the best imperfect solution: the one that solves your most pressing problem first. This is a great time to apply the “big rocks first” principle, where you look at the biggest issues and solve those before you start looking at smaller, less critical pain points.
It might just simply be that you are trying to do too much, and it is time to offload/outsource some of your tasks. This is particularly true in situations where businesses are trying to scale up. Do not consider this a failure on your part, but simply the result of being successful: you have reached the point where you cannot do it all, and every growth cycle is always a little bit painful too.
If there are a lot of hand-off of tasks getting dropped (someone starts it, another person needs to finishes it) then a team-oriented app like Asana, Monday, Airtable is what you need. If the issue is more about knowing where things are and what stage they are at, consider database apps like Notion (which can be used by teams as well). Sometimes the solution is as simple as a large quarterly wall calendar!
The best solution for you is likely not the best solution for someone else, or the popular solution you see being raved about online. It is the one that addresses your core issues and helps you move forward with your goals.
BONUS:
A fantastic bonus to doing a process audit which is often overlooked is that the resulting task outlines can be collected into a Standard Operating Procedures manual/FAQ that serves as a living knowledge base for yourself and your team. Keep it in a shared location so that it can be updated by the people doing the work, and review it regularly so you know what is being done.
Creating a knowledge base is a topic for another blog post, but even if you are the only person in your business you need to have one. Feedback I get when people first start using my Personal Projects Management method is that they did not know how much information they were cluttering up their brain with, and what a relief it was to just have reference sheets to go to when they needed to remember how to do certain tasks. A process audit is a great way to jumpstart the creation of a knowledge base.