Mastering the Corporation - the importance of forgetting

Published as a fairly obvious statement of corporate practice after being quizzed about this for the tenth time.

Assertion:

To do well in corporate life, it is essential that you can freely forget what you are doing without this being an issue. If you can not forget about the trivial tasks you will never be able to fully concentrate on the tasks you are currently doing

To be able to fully forget you have to have a fairly solid system that remembers for you. I believe that one of the most important thing any new employee can learn is how to keep a successful todo list and use the calendar functionality provided by the computer to remember for them.

Now, as with most of these observations, this is obviously not rocket science, but doesn't seem to be common practice either.

Consider James*, a new consultant for a top consultancy. James was doing a fairly solid job assisting his team, but was not keeping a regular todo list and so could not cope with taking on more tasks than he could realistically remember at any one time. In the meritocratic ranking system of the consultancy, James was not well ranked.

After being taught about a strict todo list format and note keeping he rapidly progressed and within six months was being ranked near the top of his peer group. James is not a-typical! The majority of recent graduates need to hear the same basic message.

Here is a very basic suggestion of how to keep a todo list:

1. Keep the list fresh
2. Ensure list items are 'bite sized'
3. Keep enough information on each list item to be able to do it a month later if needs be
4. Do not do anything which is not on the todo list
5. Make it easy to find todo items in other notes

Keep the list fresh
Start a new todo list each day and transfer the outstanding items from your existing list to the new list. This will remind you of what you need to do each day and ensures you have properly considered each item of work you need to do (it also stops you needing to think about your work at home).

Ensure the list items are 'bite sized'
If you todo list items feel too onerous, you will procrastinate rather than achieving them and it is very hard to know when they are finished. Bite sized todo list items give a continual sense of achievement as you can easily do the task in one sitting and sign it off. E.g. "Draft internal memo on performance reviews" rather than "Send out memo on performance reviews" if sending out a memo requires drafting, agreeing and then sending.

Keep enough information on each list item to be able to do it a month later
Your todo items should be totally self explanatory and include information such as who gave you the todo and when they gave it to you. If you have further notes which the todo is part of then the page should be referred to.

The difference between a reasonable employee and a good employee is the good employee will make sure that everything they have been trusted with gets done eventually. To be able to do this you need to be able to have totally forgotten what it is you needed to do and then been totally reminded by the list.

Do not do anything which is not on the todo list
This is pretty self explanatory. The point is that it takes discipline to stick to the todo list and if you do not universally put every item onto the list then eventually important items will miss the todo list and your faith in it being a substitute for your memory will be reduced.

Make it easy to find todo items in other notes
When taking notes you will want to mark out your 'actions' or 'todos' in context to where you were given them. These should also be transferred to the todo list. It will make it easier to find these items if you always mark them with a symbol at the same place in the page (e.g. I always draw a box in the left margin on the same horizontal as the note in the page).

Now this is all very much common sense, but that doesn't stop using these lists properly ridiculously powerful. You will be surprised how well people react to you telling them you have completed something succesfully for them which they forgot they ever asked you. How? The todo list!

*Names have been changed