Wille Faler’s Buzzword Bingo

To-Do lists are a tool everyone has probably used to keep track of what they should do. The less commonly used, but equally effective flipside of the To-Do list is the “To-Don’t list”, because sometimes it is equally if not more important to remember what not to do, rather than what to do.

To give a simple example from my own personal life: I had a persistent throat infection for a couple of months during the fall, which left me unable to exercise, which led me to gain a few unwanted pounds. When it comes to turning this around quickly from a dietary perspective, I find it easier to remember the foods not to eat, than to try to plan a menu for myself for the whole week (besides, I’m to busy to stick to an “eating plan”). Therefore I have a “To-Don’t list” when it comes to foods I should avoid, don’t eat or drink: hamburgers, pizza, crisps, chocolate, sugared soft drinks or food in general that is high in fat content. This list is much easier for me to remember than trying to think up a list of foods to eat for the whole week.

This is a simple example, but it could just as easily be applied to more professional areas, such as management:

• Don’t micro-manage people just to be seen as doing something.
• Don’t try to solve every problem with a new process - there are other solutions you know.
• Don’t critisize or otherwise assert yourself on others, just for the reason of asserting your authority.
• Don’t get hung up on mistakes in the past that have already been made - look forward and correct them.

I’m pretty sure most managers would become much better managers if they could adhere to the above To-Don’t list..

As a person I have two great gifts - I’m extremely lazy, and I have a very short attention span (which makes me very intolerant of long, drudging meetings and politicking).

I consider these two traits a gift and a big asset, and I’ll tell you why:

Laziness is a virtue
Being lazy in a rational way, with the long term in mind means a couple of things: I go to great lengths to avoid duplicating work and I try to automate mundane and boring tasks wherever possible. Doing things that can be automated is a waste of time, and so is doing the same thing over and over, or even worse, fixing things that went wrong the first time around. It may sounds counterintuitive, but being lazy actually makes me more efficient and thorough the first time around as I try to find the shortest, most elegant path from A to B. Being hasty and rushing things will almost inevitably end up meaning you will have to do twice the work to fix the things that didn’t work out.
Lastly, being lazy means I do not exert a lot of effort trying to predict things in the future that I cannot realistically predict: I am aware that there are big unknowns in front of me that need to be mitigated and dealt with, but I won’t waste time (or more preciously: energy) trying to exhaust every option and avenue when I know 90-95% of them will be for nothing.

A short attention span is a blessing
If a meeting is longer than 15 minutes, chances are my mind will start wandering of in the direction of day dreams, if a document is longer than five pages of dense text, my eyes will probably start glazing over by page six. Having a short attention span means that I am pretty good at cutting to the chase and finding the core of a matter: I know I don’t want or have the time to read an essay when a paragraph will do, I like problem definitions that are short, solutions that are simple and explanations that are brief, devoid of excuses and chit-chat, but call to action.
I’d rather spend my time solving problems and creating solutions, than reading about them or engage in debate about them. Don’t take me wrong, I like small talk as much as the next guy (probably even more), but small talk is small talk, business is business.