10 Things to Leave Undone

By: Jan Bolick
August 3, 2010

 10 by 10

This Quick List* is a companion piece to our Quote of the Week: Leaving Things Undone.

Even if we  complete the 10 Most Important Things To Do Today,  some of us still end the day feeling unproductive and guilty because of things we left undone.

What if we could leave them undone and feel noble about it?

Here are 10 tips for making this possible.

1 – 7    Go through your to do list, task list, project list or whatever you call it and ask yourself questions about each item.

  1. What’s the benefit of doing it?
  2. How does it help us reach our overall goals?
  3. How much time will it take and what’s the cost for me to do it?
  4. What will happen if I don’t do it?
  5. What will happen if no one does it?
  6. Who else could do it?
  7. How much time will it take and what’s the cost for him to do it?

 Your answers will hopefully help you come up with a few projects to leave undone forever.  Or to leave on the back burner.  Or to move to someone else’s to do     list.Depending on your situation, you may need to check in with your boss or other colleagues before making these changes.

8 – 9  Another way to find dumpable projects is to share your project list to your boss and ask:

8.  Which ones do you believe are most important?

9.  Are there any you believe could be left undone?

It’s amazing how often leaders makes an assignment with a particular strategy in mind, the strategy changes, but she forgets to adjust a few aassignments.  It’s also amazing how often leaders make an assignment, forgets about it and assigns it to someone else as well.  So – an occasional project check in can help everyone immensely!

10.  Watch your own actions.  Are you adopting new work?   Work that belongs to others?  Work that’s not even necessary?

Bonus Tip:  Make it a game.  Use the Score Card below.  Write down things you CHOOSE to leave undone this week and the amount of time you save by doing so. 

See if you can come up with 10.

And then – will you write in and tell us about your findings, time saved and aha’s?

And be sure to keep your Score Card.  It will come in handy for an upcoming excercise…Making a STOP Doing List.

More tips and tools to help you leave things undone (effectively):  Theme for the Week:  Leaving Things Undone

* This weekly feature is for managers who don’t have time or don’t want to make time to read lengthy articles or even short paragraphs. We call it a Quick List. AKA – 10 by 10 on Tuesday. 10 ( ideas or tips or questions or steps  to Get 2 Goal or Be a Better Manager, etc) by 10 (AM – EST) on Tuesdays. Click here if you’d like to see all Quick Lists created to date.

  copyright 2010 – Business Class Inc

Filed Under 2 Little Time, Be a Better Manager, Get 2 Goal, Quick List 

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Comments

4 Responses to “10 Things to Leave Undone”

  1. Boomer54 Mark on August 4th, 2010 2:50 pm

    Hey Jan,

    Love these 10 X 10. Makes stop and think and become better organized.

    BTW…really like the box in the middle. How do you do that??

    Your blogging friend,

    Mark

  2. TA on August 5th, 2010 10:06 am

    Hi Mark,

    Glad you like these.

    As for box in the middle – this is a file unloaded to box.net and then embedded into this post. Let me know if you’d like more info.

    Thanks for reading and writing.

    Jan

    Jan

  3. Aspergers Syndromes Symptoms on August 10th, 2010 6:46 pm

    Keep posting stuff like this i really like it

  4. Jan on August 11th, 2010 1:36 pm

    Glad to hear it! We’ll keep posting…hope you’ll keep reading and writing!

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