Dear Maya,
I delegate a hundred little things in a week. How can I make sure every single one of them got done? Should I go through my sent mail once a week to see what’s still out there?
Sincerely,
Outbox Checker
Dear Outbox Checker,
I feel you. Delegating is among the hardest skills we must master to succeed. Whether at home or at work, we have to get a significant number of tasks off our plates in order to devote enough time to our high-priority, high-value activities.
Successful delegating requires three things: competent people to delegate to, clear instructions and expectations for the work we’re dispatching, and fail-safe systems for reviewing delegated work at well-timed intervals. Luckily, two of the three are totally within our control and we can heavily influence the third.
As a culture, we’ve come to view email as a kind of Swiss Army Knife of digital productivity and inevitably many assignments are issued through this medium. But email is just email. It’s simply a correspondence tool. We are the multi-tool that can scale fish, drive screws or lift caps (metaphorically speaking). We are the ones with the power to make an email a suggestion, an order or a reminder.
If you are delegating to great, experienced workers during a great week, you won’t have to revisit your sent box to remind you of outstanding tasks. They will work steadily and communicate updates regularly so the dialogue remains open. But in the real world, we’re often delegating to less-than-great or inexperienced workers during less-than-great weeks and some fail-safes are required.
The clarity of the instructions and expectations that you set in your initial email can help. Embed updates in the assignment to impose regular communication from people who might not take the initiative to provide it. That is, ask your correspondents to reply confirming they’ve received the messages and to send updates when they hit certain milestones. This way, you’re really assigning two things for them to do: perform specific tasks and communicate progress as they go. As confidence and competence develop over time, you can ease up the communication requirement.
“Trust, but verify” is an axiom to live by in management (and journalism, incidentally). Even when delegating to the best of the best, you’ll still need a personal system for tracking progress. Below are some suggestions for specific systems. But first, you need to think about what type of task you’re assigning to determine the kind of follow-up it requires.
There are two kinds of tasks people delegate: Those that are ends in themselves and those that are steps in a process. The former include things like adding a photo to a blog post or sending a retirement card to a former employee. They must be done (if not, why delegate?), but failure to do them isn’t preventing someone else from doing their job.
By contrast, the latter category of tasks has a direct impact on the next person in line. If someone doesn’t report payroll, the bank can’t transfer the money to employees’ accounts and the workers can’t pay their bills. If someone doesn’t conduct the research, the analyst can’t write the report and the manager can’t make an informed decision or argument.
Tasks in either category can be urgent or not, important or not. But you must consider the distinction when determining the urgency and frequency of your progress reviews. It’s not enough to check your sent box weekly if something needs to be done tomorrow or should have been done yesterday to keep other work on track.
The goal is to review a select number of things when you need to. That means considering each task individually, making a call about how aggressively you want to follow up, and scheduling a reminder or recurring reminders if necessary.
Here are a few ideas on how to use technology to help you:
Note it.
Create a “Waiting For” list as David Allen advises in “Getting Things Done” and keep a running list of what you have requested from others. I recommend doing this in an online task manager like Wunderlist so that you can schedule reminders. Tying a deadline or reminder to the pending items ensures that they will rise to your attention (your Today list) when you want them to.
The wisdom in such a system is that you don’t have to wade into the muck of your email account to see who needs to be pushed, prodded or encouraged. If you dive into your task list first thing, as opposed to your email inbox, you’re taking control of your workday and are less likely to get pulled off track.
Of course, if any of your tasks require emailing someone a follow-up note, you’re back in the inbox and susceptible to distraction all over again. But this is the answer less often than you think. Often, you can do said pushing, prodding or encouraging by phone or (gasp) face-to-face. Sometimes the medium is the message.
Boomerang it.
Now, if it’s a one-off thing that you don’t want to trouble your to-do list with, using an email resend service like Boomerang, which works with Gmail and Outlook, is a viable (but not ideal) solution. Once installed you simply hit a Boomerang button to schedule the message to return to you at a specific day and time. Envision yourself flinging messages into cyber obscurity, only for them to return a day, a week or whatever timeframe you choose later. That way, you can reply within the same email chain to request an update. All without having to sort through your sent box.
The problem with this approach is that it increases email volume and dependency. Now you’re checking emails from others and from yourself. But it’s slightly better than scouring your outbox. Baby steps.
File it.
Another option for the email-dependent is just to create a specific label or folder within your email program for items that require follow-up. The relevant messages are segregated, which saves you time sifting through all of your sent mail. You can review them easily on a weekly basis as you originally suggested. Once the task is complete, you can remove the label or re-file the message.
Again, this works, but we can do better. With the filing method, you still have to remind yourself to check the label or file on a consistent basis. Technology is ready to help you achieve just-in-time notification as described above in the Wunderlist example. It’s just smart to use it to your advantage.
How do you stay on top of the things you’ve delegated to other people? What technology, processes or other tools are you using to close the loop on outsourced tasks?
We knew the goal was ambitious, particularly because the heart of the campaign involved engaging hundreds of supporters to raise thousands of dollars through the sale of t-shirts on Bonfire Funds, a new online fundraising platform. But the shirts were crucial to the campaign’s vision. We wanted to dramatically raise name recognition of the little-known local organization.
This holiday season, I am grateful to the Greater Richmond area for hearing our appeal, buying and selling shirts, making and soliciting donations, and all of the other things you’ve done to support the wonderful children whose potential is nurtured by FRIENDS. Since November 1, more than 800 individuals have supported the campaign by purchasing shirts or making donations to FRIENDS. As of December 25, we’ve raised $24,536 and sold 1,672 t-shirts through Bonfire. That’s incredible.
But that’s not all. Some very generous companies and philanthropists made end-of-the-year pledges to ensure that we reached our six-figure goal. We’ve also received in-kind donations, inquiries from prospective volunteers and offers of support services for FRIENDS families. And we’re beginning to receive awesome photographs like those featured here of supporters rocking their FRIENDS RVA shirts. Together, all of these things provide ample illustration that FRIENDS has been embraced by a broader, more diverse group of ambassadors than ever before.
If you haven’t gotten your shirt yet, there’s still time to join the movement. Visit bonfirefunds.com/friendsrva before the campaign ends December 31.
It was Phil Robertson’s sincerity that got me. The sense that he really believed what he was saying. That as self-described white trash, he felt a kinship with black farm laborers. That he couldn’t fathom the enormity of the distance between them.
The mere fact that he could sit atop a multimillion-dollar Duck Dynasty was evidence enough of the divide, to me anyway. You see I had taken enough African American studies courses at Harvard to know that the public faces black people showed whites during Jim Crow disguised centuries worth of pain and distrust.
And if that wasn’t enough, I had an 88-year-old grandmother sitting in a Cleveland, Ohio, duplex still shuddering from the memories of her own cotton-picking past who could personally attest to that truth. The truth in which black people were brutalized in the south in ways that aren’t easily resolved—or ignored—even with the passage of time. Ways that can send you running and still haunt you 70 odd years later. Continue reading “On Singing the Blues”
It was Phil Robertson’s sincerity that got me. The sense that he really believed what he was saying. That as self-described white trash, he felt a kinship with black farm laborers. That he couldn’t fathom the enormity of the distance between them.
The mere fact that he could sit atop a multimillion-dollar Duck Dynasty was evidence enough of the divide, to me anyway. You see I had taken enough African American studies courses at Harvard to know that the public faces black people showed whites during Jim Crow disguised centuries worth of pain and distrust.
And if that wasn’t enough, I had an 88-year-old grandmother sitting in a Cleveland, Ohio, duplex still shuddering from the memories of her own cotton-picking past who could personally attest to that truth. The truth in which black people were brutalized in the south in ways that aren’t easily resolved—or ignored—even with the passage of time. Ways that can send you running and still haunt you 70 odd years later. Continue reading “On Singing the Blues”
The bed won’t stay made. The clear counter will inevitably yield to an onslaught of dishes, ingredients and mail. But at least once a day for a brief interval–let’s call it a Martha Moment–I will set things right and experience a bit of peace and quiet in an otherwise hectic day.
An empty email inbox is by far the trickiest of the three to pull off daily, but it’s possible. Productivity gurus will tout the wisdom of folders and filters. They’ll tell you to prioritize and offer tips on scanning to separate the important from the junk. They’ll lobby for regular email-checking time blocks and warn of the perils of checking messages too early in the morning or too late at night.
These email-centric tactics are all well and good. But the things that made the biggest difference in my personal quest for inbox zero happened outside the box—in my attitude and on my to-do list. If you’re ready to take charge of your inbox, follow my lead.
Continue reading “How to Vanquish Email Overload Once and For All”
The bed won’t stay made. The clear counter will inevitably yield to an onslaught of dishes, ingredients and mail. But at least once a day for a brief interval–let’s call it a Martha Moment–I will set things right and experience a bit of peace and quiet in an otherwise hectic day.
An empty email inbox is by far the trickiest of the three to pull off daily, but it’s possible. Productivity gurus will tout the wisdom of folders and filters. They’ll tell you to prioritize and offer tips on scanning to separate the important from the junk. They’ll lobby for regular email-checking time blocks and warn of the perils of checking messages too early in the morning or too late at night.
These email-centric tactics are all well and good. But the things that made the biggest difference in my personal quest for inbox zero happened outside the box—in my attitude and on my to-do list. If you’re ready to take charge of your inbox, follow my lead.
Continue reading “How to Vanquish Email Overload Once and For All”
The choice of Janet Echelman’s work to illustrate the Harvard Business Review article “Women Rising: The Unseen Barriers” opens up a much larger—and to me, more inspiring—debate about how women become true leaders.
Echelman’s work hints at the inner vision, that needs to happen for us to lead in any context. In this debate, rethinking the corporate workspace is no longer central; instead, it’s about freeing ourselves from traditional paths to seek out and pursue our own creative potential, guided by a grand vision. Continue reading “Leadership: The Echelman Way”
The choice of Janet Echelman’s work to illustrate the Harvard Business Review article “Women Rising: The Unseen Barriers” opens up a much larger—and to me, more inspiring—debate about how women become true leaders.
Echelman’s work hints at the inner vision, that needs to happen for us to lead in any context. In this debate, rethinking the corporate workspace is no longer central; instead, it’s about freeing ourselves from traditional paths to seek out and pursue our own creative potential, guided by a grand vision. Continue reading “Leadership: The Echelman Way”
Dear Maya,
I received a bunch of gift cards this holiday season and I still haven’t spent the ones I received last year. I’m trying to keep my spending under control and I worry that by walking into some of these stores I would be setting myself up to overspend. At the same time, I feel bad about wasting the cards that friends, family and co-workers bought with their hard-earned money.
Sincerely,
Gift-Card Worrier
Continue reading “The Gift Card Conundrum: How to Spend without Overspending”
Dear Maya,
I received a bunch of gift cards this holiday season and I still haven’t spent the ones I received last year. I’m trying to keep my spending under control and I worry that by walking into some of these stores I would be setting myself up to overspend. At the same time, I feel bad about wasting the cards that friends, family and co-workers bought with their hard-earned money.
Sincerely,
Gift-Card Worrier
Continue reading “The Gift Card Conundrum: How to Spend without Overspending”
I smiled at the thought of millions typing queries into the search engine under Hurston’s watchful gaze. She was the ultimate questioning woman so it’s only fitting.
I hope many will click on her image and discover or reconnect with this fierce, independent and accomplished writer. Today she’s best known for her novel “Their Eyes Were Watching God,” but she also published three other novels; dozens of short stories, essays and articles; three plays; three musical compositions; eight folk tales and anthropological works; and an autobiography.
Alice Walker observed: “After reading Hurston, anyone coming to the United States would know exactly where to go to find the remains of the culture that kept Southern black people going through centuries of white oppression. They could find what was left of the music; they could find what was left of the speech; they could find what was left of the dancing; they could find what was left of the work, the people’s relationship to the earth and to animals; they could find what was left of the orchards, the gardens, and the fields; they could find what was left of the prayer.”
Indeed, Hurston’s greatest gift as a writer was her ear. She reveled in the subtleties of black vernacular speech, passionately capturing the cadence and timbre of voices. Her deep listening and nuanced retelling made her stories—fiction and otherwise—vivid, distinctive, matchless.
“And Janie, maybe it wasn’t much, but Ah done de best Ah kin by you. Ah raked and scraped and bought dis lil piece uh land so you wouldn’t have to stay in de white folks’ yard and tuck you’ head befo’ other chillun at school. Dat was all right when you was little. But when you got big enough to understand things, Ah wanted you to look upon yo’self. Ah don’t want yo’ feathers always crumpled by folks throwin’ up things in yo’ face. And Ah can’t die easy thinking maybe de menfoks white or black is makin’ a spit cup outa you; Have some sympathy fuh me. Put me down easy, Janie, Ah’m a cracked plate.”
– From “Their Eyes Were Watching God”
Beyond local idiom, figurative speech and lore, Hurston mastered the studied but no less colorful tone of her omniscient third-person narrator.
She saw a dust-bearing bee sink into the sanctum of a bloom; the thousand sister-calyxes arch to meet the love embrace and the ecstatic shiver of the tree from root to tiniest branch creaming in every blossom and frothing with delight. So this was a marriage!
– From “Their Eyes Were Watching God”
Hurston also made art of the telling and retelling of her own story in her own voice.
I was glad when somebody told me, “You may go and collect Negro folk-lore.” In a way it would not be a new experience for me. When I pitched headforemost into the world I landed in the crib of negroism. From the earliest rocking of my cradle, I had known about the capers Brer Rabbit is apt to cut and what the Squinch Owl says from the house top. But it was fitting me like a tight chemise. I couldn’t see it for wearing it. It was only when I was off in college, away from my native surroundings, that I could see myself like somebody else and stand off and look at my garment. Then I had to have the spy-glass of Anthropology to look through at that.
– From “Mules and Men”
In this way, Hurston was a multilingual marvel and the undoubted literary foremother of so many I admire today. Women who celebrate and give voice to people on the margins without condescension, apology or pity. Women who write artfully and heartfully. Women who speak their own names.
Happy Birthday, Zora!
Maya Recommends
A Google search for Zora Neale Hurston will yield 6,840,000 results in 0.47 seconds. Below I offer a few personally curated selections for your information and pleasure. My faves:
- Soul of a Black Woman. This great overview of Hurston’s legacy by Henry Louis Gates, Jr., appeared in the New York Times in February of 1978 and was reprinted as the afterword to Zora Neale Hurston: The Complete Stories.
- Zora Hurston, 57, Writer, Is Dead. This New York Times Obituary includes a 1942 photo of Hurston and offers insight into how news of her death was covered at the time.
For the last ten years or so I’ve written out New Year’s Intentions. They are like resolutions but a bit less, well, resolute.
They represent goals and habits that I’m interested in building a life on, but they lack the forcefulness and grit the term “resolutions” implies. The usual suspects health, fitness and family make regular appearances on the annual lists as do career and financial goals. Results, to put it mildly, vary.
One area that’s been a particular struggle is the eating well intention. After years of study, I now have a very sophisticated food philosophy. Problem is, I’m entirely ill-equipped to live it.
Like an increasing number of American women, I’m concerned about the origin of most of the food I eat and the industrial food complex that delivers it. I believe that buying and preparing fresh, healthy and sustainably sourced food is among the most powerful ways I can have a positive moral, political and environmental impact in the world. I also have no clue as to how to do this on a consistent basis. Continue reading “This Year I Learn to Cook”
For the last ten years or so I’ve written out New Year’s Intentions. They are like resolutions but a bit less, well, resolute.
They represent goals and habits that I’m interested in building a life on, but they lack the forcefulness and grit the term “resolutions” implies. The usual suspects health, fitness and family make regular appearances on the annual lists as do career and financial goals. Results, to put it mildly, vary.
One area that’s been a particular struggle is the eating well intention. After years of study, I now have a very sophisticated food philosophy. Problem is, I’m entirely ill-equipped to live it.
Like an increasing number of American women, I’m concerned about the origin of most of the food I eat and the industrial food complex that delivers it. I believe that buying and preparing fresh, healthy and sustainably sourced food is among the most powerful ways I can have a positive moral, political and environmental impact in the world. I also have no clue as to how to do this on a consistent basis. Continue reading “This Year I Learn to Cook”
Dear Maya,
Well, there is a lot I could use some advice on but right now my thoughts have been centered around one thing that scares the crap out of me—becoming a mother. I know, I know, women have been doing this for years…but I haven’t.
How did you know you were ready? Did you know? I am very active in my community and career and don’t know how being a mom will impact these. I am so scared of giving up everything I am working towards…
I also struggle a little with my husband and not feeling a little resentful that he doesn’t wrestle with these questions as we head down the road to becoming parents. He is very laid back and seems to think I am worrying too much. I am afraid he might be right (even though I won’t admit it to him). 😉
The Baby Worrier
Continue reading “Ready or Not: Having a Baby Means Making Some Tough Calls”
Dear Maya,
Well, there is a lot I could use some advice on but right now my thoughts have been centered around one thing that scares the crap out of me—becoming a mother. I know, I know, women have been doing this for years…but I haven’t.
How did you know you were ready? Did you know? I am very active in my community and career and don’t know how being a mom will impact these. I am so scared of giving up everything I am working towards…
I also struggle a little with my husband and not feeling a little resentful that he doesn’t wrestle with these questions as we head down the road to becoming parents. He is very laid back and seems to think I am worrying too much. I am afraid he might be right (even though I won’t admit it to him). 😉
The Baby Worrier
Continue reading “Ready or Not: Having a Baby Means Making Some Tough Calls”
But when the lists get long, as they inevitably do, another variety of list is required—The Kill List. It is the more forceful cousin of the Not-To-Do List touted by productivity experts. It is a catalog of time-sucking, energy-draining, useless activity that you no longer choose to engage in.
But when the lists get long, as they inevitably do, another variety of list is required—The Kill List. It is the more forceful cousin of the Not-To-Do List touted by productivity experts. It is a catalog of time-sucking, energy-draining, useless activity that you no longer choose to engage in.
