Managing lists: Do not underestimate this art

Organized, productive and calm people can manage lists. You certainly know many representatives of this species, and maybe you even happen to be one of them. But, believe me, there are many people out there who would improve their performance and life quality if they mastered the art of managing lists.

Yes, there are methods and tools available, but they are not universal. Just like there are people who can be organized with half a dozen of yellow post-its sticking all around, others can't manage it even with the help of sophisticated priority, activation and control systems.

Let's propose just 3 important points on this theme:

1. Do not overlook this “science”. Recognize your problem and invest time to minimize its effects. There are many things happening out there.

2. A list is an inventory of future activities. This inventory, just like any other, has some basic attributes and qualities;

a. Not deteriorating;

b. Easily spotting what’s been stored;

c. Not occupying space with useless items;

d. Turnover.

3. The key to this is in the activation process, which occurs at the moment we pick a problem from the list and face it for its solution.

On the image a typical list is presented which almost everyone of us has - and how to manage it better.

In routine control, we all have a failure treatment process and operate a results dashboard. These are two very important tools, but with a limited problem-solving capacity.

* In failure treatment the basic question to be asked 5 times is “why”?

* In the Results Dashboard, if an anomaly is found, we use the simple Fact>Cause>Action resource; for small improvements the old 5w1h is applied.

Well, the tools above are simple and often can't achieve the proposed results. Do not try to take from them what they don't have to offer: it's more practical to recognize that we have a problem, which then goes on our list.

The list quickly grows, and our problem-solving capacity is no match to it. It's necessary, then, to have well-defined criteria to prioritize and - very importantly - not pass a lot of problems on to our subordinates at the same time. By acting thus we lose control of the situation: people start to set priorities based on other criteria and, what is worst - have extremely low productivity, going from one problem to the next.

Knowing how to manage a list keeps the failure treatment processes and results dashboard to become overwhelmed.

After a problem is identified, we need to support the people in charge so that they can find a solution for it, implement it and end its cycle, making sure it will not return.