The Art of Getting Things Done

Creative Commons Photo Credit by zachklein

The Stress

You just found out about something big about to take place. I don’t know about you, but I would stress out in this moment. I usually do it quietly and internalize most things. That’s how I deal. No matter how you deal with it, you feel it from time to time. The question is, what do we do after the stress?

Preparation

I will forget something 99.9% of the time if I do not write it down. That is my first step when I hear about something that I need to get done. I don’t know what “write it down” means to you, but for me it means to type it into Evernote on my iPhone. What an awesome tool! I highly recommend it if you don’t use it already.The next step in preparation is actually taking time to plan and think. This is the step that most skip over because they think they have it all together. Life gets busy and the stopping to think doesn’t seem so important. We can figure it out while driving in between work and picking the kids up from school, right? Maybe, but probably wrong.

The solutions to the problems are usually missed here, in the prep, if not careful.

Conversation

Listen, nobody has all of the answers on their own. Conversations come in handy when getting on a team with the same goals in mind and talking about what you want the outcome to look like. Of course you need to know who has expertise in those areas that you need some insight in. And it’s usually not one person that should give you guidance in every area of life. I will seek a financial planner to help me with my finances, not with my marriage. For my marriage, I will seek out knowledge from a couple that has been together for 50 years or a marriage counselor, not my mechanic who is great with working on cars. Make sense? Know who is on the other side of your conversation.

From this outside information and the previous steps, you can  begin to plan the action steps that you will need to reach the planned outcome.

Hard Work with Focus

“Nothing worth having, ever came easy.” 

Let’s be honest, all talk and no action isn’t going to work. It just doesn’t, no matter how much we wish that it did. You usually have to put some hard work in to get you to the goals that you want to achieve. This can apply to the schooling that doctors have to go through. This can apply to the hard work that is put in to becoming an olympian athlete. This can apply to people that want to lose weight. The list goes on and on here. You have to “do” to see the results. Apply this concept in your life today.

Focusing on the right things along with hard work will make all the difference in the world. Notice that I didn’t just say to focus. There is a lot of focusing on the wrong things that will bring the wrong results. Know what you want and go after it.

Communication 

This may be the one thing that no one has mastered as of yet. It always seems that little details are missed along the way that maybe didn’t seem important to that person, but is definitely important for the rest of the team to achieve the desired outcome. The key is to never assume that it isn’t vital information or that everyone will know those details somehow without ever being told. And then once you think you communicated everything that could possibly be communicated to everyone else, ask the team to repeat back to you what they heard, so you can make sure everyone is on the same page. I really don’t know if there is such thing as “over-communication”, or maybe I’ve never experienced it.

Patience in the Waiting

Waiting is boring, but that isn’t patience at all. Real patience is anticipation. This is the key to make the waiting part worth while. And while you are waiting, make sure to keep moving towards that goal or start working towards another one. Time is too valuable to be caught standing still.

Outcome

Did you get your desired outcome? I really hope you did! But, no matter what the outcome was, you might want to conduct an after action review, so you know where it went right and where it went wrong so you know what to do next time around…

“What went well? What didn’t go well? What should we do differently next time to make it better?”

Momentum after the Process

Momentum is such an important factor, no matter where you are in life. It could be that thing to propel you into even more greatness. With momentum, it doesn’t just happen once. It happens again and again. It starts to become fluid and the same results keep coming. It provides the results that you want. It raises expectations. It brings confidence. Momentum is huge!

So, what point in the art of getting things done are you mostly in right now? You can leave a comment below in the comment section.