16: Futureproof
In the last email (subject: Grease is the word), I shared how cyclical workflows can enable people. We can group together tasks by cadence, and ensure nothing slips through the cracks, thus reducing reactive busywork and improving performance.
And whilst those were largely housekeeping-type examples, the benefits of cyclical workflows are far greater than remembering to send your tax return or update the intranet.
For example, let’s think about the implications of what this functionality means from a strategic perspective. If we were to go back to our salesperson example from earlier emails, what activities might benefit them on a monthly or quarterly basis?
How about reflecting on these questions:
What patterns am I seeing across my successful deals this quarter?
What patterns am I seeing across churned customers this quarter?
Where am I relying on personal effort rather than a repeatable approach?
If I left tomorrow, what knowledge, relationships or responsibilities would be difficult to replace?
What am I neglecting now that could limit my success later?
These might not be things we should be considering weekly. But they’re probably things we should be thinking about a few times each year.
And so, we can embed strategic pauses into these cyclical workflows.
This concept largely mirrors another of the recommended techniques in the productivity book I mentioned in an earlier email called Getting Things Done. The author recommends a Weekly review as part of his systems thinking approach to productivity.
I’ve been using weekly, monthly, quarterly and annual review workflows religiously for the past six years, all of which surface via my daily dashboard. And they’ve been super helpful to keep me on track. They involve a combination of housekeeping-type tasks and the more strategic, reflective thinking exercises mentioned above.
And this isn’t just helpful for longer cadences. What about if we consider the things we should be doing daily? What reminders would be helpful before and after work?
Here are a few items from my daily startup workflow (the thing I try to do before I start work - ten minutes’ effort):
Move/cancel any non-essential meetings
Process email inbox
Check calendar for today’s meetings
Drink glass of water
And here are some from my daily shut down workflow (five minutes effort before I log off):
Review today’s biggest challenge and reflect on response
Organise tomorrow's task list
Schedule time tomorrow for focus work
Add phone alerts for important events
Now extrapolate that thinking out across the business. Consider all of the benefits people would experience if they were reminded to reflect on the important (not urgent) stuff on a regular cadence.
And to clarify, there is no consequence for not completing any of these workflows. Because they’re recurring, they will reappear again on the next cadence. Meaning, worst case scenario the reminders are ignored and nothing changes - which leaves us no worse off than we were before we started.
But just having those best practice workflows surface at timely intervals can be enough to gently nudge a behaviour change.
More soon,
- Ant
