Get Everything Done

Over the holidays, my father was trying to explain to my son, age 13, how to decide what to do.

My son is 13, very stubborn and set in his ways, and he doesn't believe that his current system of winging it will very soon fail him.

My father claims he follows my uncle's advice. My uncle was a VP in a large international company, so Dad takes his advice seriously. (So he says. When they married, Mom took over the paperwork, including many past-due notices.)

The first bit of advice is good if you're in a crunch: When something arrives on your desk, ask yourself "What is the worst possible thing that will happen if I do absolutely nothing about this." That way, you actively decide to do nothing about it, rather than do nothing about it by default.

In a crunch, good. In normal life, you need to add, "absolutely nothing today, this week, this year and ever." If the answer to "ever" is "nothing bad", then dismiss!

The other advice was, when looking for the next thing to do, ask "If I can only do one thing today, what is most important?" At the end of the day, you can look back and say you did the most important thing.

Again, good in the crunch, but bad in the long-run. The most important thing for me is to make my kids feel valued. If I could only do one thing in the next week, it would be to take them out of school and spend time with them. Forget housework, my novel, cooking, school, bills, and husband. Probably a bad idea for normal life.

Perhaps the question should be, "Given the week I'm likely to have, and any reasonable interruptions (such as the flu, but not as rare as having to evacuate the city), what is the most important thing right now?" During a normal week, it's important the kids go to school during school hours, the house is comfortable, I get time for myself as me rather than just as a mother, there's good food, and we meet the budget (both incoming and outgoing).

That question still undervalues rare occurrences. We'd only make an evac kit if evacuation is likely (at which time everyone else in the city will also want bottled water). We'd never call the life insurance salesman for the biennial review. But it's better than the first version.

It's a good question to prime yourself with when starting a new page in AF. On busy weeks, things like my novel just don't stand out. On slow weeks, when I know I'll have plenty of free time and can shuffle my schedule, they do.

Now to decide whether to force my son to make a rough schedule for his current project, and change his approach to research (read a bit, write a paragraph) is already failing him. (I like read a bit, write a note, repeat, sort notes into paragraphs. It allows for discovering info on day 5 that should go in the paragraph you wrote on day 1.)

Thanks for listening.

My Uncle started as an engineer, but moved into management fairly quickly. Unlike Grandpa and Dad, Uncle thinks more like a manager than an engineer. Dad thinks like an engineer who appreciates good management (and is willing to tell management exactly what they forgot to consider) but prefers to spend most of his time on technical challenges. Grandpa managed to live in both worlds.

Speaking of Grandpa, I his advice on report writing is golden: "I'm busy. I have 2 minutes. You have 1/2 a page to tell me what I need to do, what it will cost, and what will happen if I don't. If I have any questions, I'll ask."

I think some of Uncle's management advice was developed between junior and senior positions, but he (and Dad) claims it works in all positions. Sadly, Grandpa is no longer around to consult (but his great-grandson is already looking at engineering schools).