Work Clean

by Dan Charnas

  Routines are recurring. You may adjust them week to week, but ideally, your Routines should be just that: routine.

  Routines can fall into any one of the following categories.

  Personal time. These Routines are vital for health and well-being and are often nonnegotiable, so they get scheduled first. When do you have lunch? What hour would you like to be home? When would you like to go to sleep, and when would you like to wake up? When would you like to have time with your spouse or your children or your friends? When do you do your chores? When do you commute? When would you like to exercise? All these Actions should be either blocked or shaded out on your schedule. Your Personal Routines also include making time for your 30-minute Daily Meeze.

  Meeting time. Appointments, conferences, and phone calls—whether recurring or one-off—are the first form of presence required of you by your job. You are, for the most part, going to have to schedule your Frontburners around these. You may also want to block out specific times for “making the rounds” at work—not meetings per se, but a more casual time to share information with your colleagues and address issues.

  Immersive time. These blocks of time you reserve for deep, focused work. For example, I take a lot of meetings between Monday and Wednesday. But Thursdays and Fridays I can usually reserve for deeper work—thinking, writing, reading, and brainstorming. Many of your Frontburners will go inside these Routines. The more you honor your immersive time, the more others will.

  Process time. At work, the things that don’t get scheduled end up absorbing much of our time: answering correspondence, impromptu conversations, emerging crises. Scheduling blocks of process time at key points in your day is just about the smartest thing you can do to be honest with time. Process Routines group similar tasks that benefit from being executed together; into these time buckets you collect individual tasks that feel too small to schedule individually but will nevertheless need time: rolling or returning calls, checking e-mails, consulting with colleagues to keep projects moving forward, processing paperwork, doing small errands. Dedicate some Process Routines to items across several different Missions; use others to clear out a group of Actions on behalf of just one Mission.

  Process time Routines should be shorter and more frequent than other Routines. Remember that process time relates to the principle of making first moves: making sure that the people who can be doing work for you have everything they need from you in order to work while your hands are off; and it also relates to the principle of finishing actions: unblocking stuck projects. Process time generally encompasses smaller tasks, shorter in duration, that come in larger numbers—like answering calls and e-mails, filling out forms, giving brief instructions. Schedule process time in regular, shorter intervals throughout your day, at “stopping points” between meeting time, immersive time, and personal time. If 30 minutes of process time at the beginning of your workday will set or keep processes in motion and loosen the pressure on you, put it before ostensibly more “important” tasks. Scheduling other Process Routines around noon and in the late afternoon is a good idea. Some days I like to schedule longer Process Routines to take on tougher and longer tasks needing more attention. The frequency of your process time depends largely on the demands of your job and career. The more people and processes you manage, the more process time you need on your schedule.

  Constraining Process Routines is just as important as scheduling them. If you let them, process tasks can easily spill over and flood the rest of your schedule. For some of us, this overflow happens daily. Schedule enough regular Process Routines so that the pressure of these tasks is kept low, and honor their beginnings and endings. Those good habits will then make it easier to “clear the decks” for yourself when a real crisis emerges and you absolutely must push off other appointments. The more quickly and efficiently you work within your Process Routines—grouping together alike Actions such as e-mails, calls, forms, and errands—the less spillover you will have.

  Scheduling Routines

  In plotting out your Routines, pay particular attention to transition times between home and office, and between appointments. Leave some of these transitions open as times to breathe and relax. Keep others for Routines. The time between home and office on certain days, for example, can be reserved for errands. If you have a long commute by public transportation, you can reserve those times for reading or other Immersive Routines. Remember, a Routine is not an Action, but a time bucket for Actions, in the same way that a plate is not a meal. But the way you arrange your table determines what you can fit on it.

  Conceiving, scheduling, and keeping your Routines helps you maintain a workable life and a sane mind. It means that your weekly schedule becomes a mise-en-place for time, wherein everything you do—major or minor, urgent or optional—has its right place.

  Advanced Concept: When Actions Are Routine, They Become Routines!

  Some Missions don’t need lists of Actions, but rather one simple Action, repeated. For example, if your Mission is to “Get healthy” and one of your intentions is to run three times per week, an Action item like “Run 3x per week” is not something that could ever be checked off your list because it is supposed to happen regularly and indefinitely. The Action item you’d want to schedule in this case is “Schedule Personal Routine: run 3x per week.” The result is a Routine that stays on your calendar.

  How Missions, Actions, and Routines Fit Together

  Missions require Actions to be completed. Those Actions require order, so you can know what to do and when to do it—hence the idea of Frontburners and Backburners, what comes first, what comes next. And those Frontburners must actually happen in time; they need scheduling.

  There are two ways to schedule an Action: (1) as a stand-alone appointment on your calendar; or (2) grouped into a scheduled Routine containing smaller tasks.

  For example, when you have a Mission requiring an Action like spending 2 hours writing a presentation, you would make an appointment with yourself, ideally within one of your Immersive Routines. But when you have a bunch of smaller, similar Actions—returning a bunch of calls, dissecting e-mail threads, reading small articles, etc.—instead of scheduling them all separately, put them into their own Process Routine. In this way you will handle lots of incoming requests and tasks that feel too small to list as Actions within your Mission lists: Just throw them into a Process Routine on your schedule.

  We now share a common Work Clean vocabulary.

  ■Missions, your menu of big goals

  ■Actions, the steps to achieving your Missions, ordered into Frontburners and Backburners

  ■Routines, your mise-en-place for time, into which those Actions are scheduled

  In the next section, we use this vocabulary as we walk through an ideal day in the life of working clean. While the following scenario is geared toward office work, you will find much here that’s applicable to academia, field work, professions and trades, and more.

  The first move is always figuring out the first move.

  A DAY OF WORKING CLEAN

  The world is a giant gerbil wheel right now. I think if we just became a little bit more organized, used a little bit more mise-en-place, understood what we really need, and only do what we really need, I think we’ll have more time. You’ll be able to sit down at the table with your kids and actually cook a meal. Get up a little bit earlier so you can breathe. You want to greet the day.

  —Chef Dwayne LiPuma, Chef Instructor, Culinary Institute of America

  EVENING: PREPARATION

  Tomorrow begins today. So in the evening—as some of us prepare to leave work or others are at home after the kids are put to bed—we embark on the core practice of mise-en-place in our lives, our 30-minute Daily Meeze.

  THE DAILY MEEZE has four parts, each with a specific function and each taking a certain balance of the time.

  1.Clean your station (approximately 15 minutes).

  2.Sharpen your tools (approximately 5 minutes).

&nb
sp; 3.Plan your day (approximately 10 minutes).

  4.Gather your resources.

  What tools do we need? Our planning tools, Action list, calendar, and a timer.

  Below, we’ll walk through the Daily Meeze together, step-by-step.

  STEP ONE: CLEAN YOUR STATION

  (approximately 15 minutes)

  Before you can organize, you need to gather the items that must be organized, wherever they may be hiding. Clean your station means clearing and logging all your inputs, both physical and digital—any place where you collect the “stuff” you must do. And since we have so many inputs, this part of our Daily Meeze, cleaning your station, takes the most time.

  First: Empty and Log Physical Inputs

  1.Wallet. The receipts and business cards that we pick up throughout the day accumulate here. Dump them into your desk inbox.

  2.Bag or purse. Our “containers” are not only filled with papers, but books, stray cords, pieces of clothing, even food. Empty these containers. Put the stuff that needs to be logged into your desk inbox. Return the accessories and larger items to their right places. Replace what needs to go back in your bag. Trash everything else.

  3.Desktop. Because our desktop usually ends up becoming a de facto inbox, sweep it for sticky notes, scraps of paper, and larger items. Dump these items into your desk inbox.

  4.Desk inbox. Now that we’ve put our loggable items into our inbox along with what’s already in there, process all these, logging the Action items onto your Action list or calendar. File or trash anything not actionable.

  5.Notebook. If you have a notebook in which you write prompts for action, log those items onto your Action list or calendar.

  What are “inputs”? Inputs are channels for incoming tasks. Those channels can be physical containers or surfaces, like a desk or inbox or a notebook in which you’ve written a reminder for yourself, or they can be digital containers or surfaces, like your e-mail browser, task app, or notetaking software.

  What is “clearing”? For your physical inputs, clearing means literally emptying or sweeping them for loose items that we’ve collected to prompt our own action: business cards, sticky notes, mail, etc. For your digital inputs, clearing means scanning your applications and virtual desktop for action items.

  What is “logging”? All those action items will need to be collected, sorted, and processed in one of three ways.

  1.Trash (like a receipt or note you don’t need to keep)

  2.File (like a book you’ve been carrying that needs to go back on your shelf)

  3.Log (like an Action item written into either your Action list or calendar)

  Log any Action that you can schedule immediately (“Call doctor tomorrow”) on your calendar at either the appropriate time or as an “all-day event” if you are not sure of the time.

  Log any Action that you can’t schedule immediately (and many Actions should indeed be sorted into Missions before scheduling) in your Action inbox.

  You may, if you wish, log an item simultaneously onto your Action list and calendar, so that you always have a record of it.

  Second: Clear and Log Digital Inputs

  The proliferation of digital inputs is why it’s so important to consolidate your streams of communication as much as possible, as we detailed in Call and Callback. If you work with a digital Action list and calendar, much of the logging here can be done by “cutting-and-pasting” text from your inputs into your planning tools. Scan the following applications and virtual “surfaces” on your mobile devices and/or computer for action items, logging each one.

  1.E-mail. For many of us e-mail is the most vital channel, so it goes first.

  a.Scan your inbox and flag all the e-mails that need action.

  b.Archive both flagged and unflagged e-mails, clearing your inbox.

  c.Open the Flagged folder and log these into your Action inbox either by cut-and-paste or by forwarding the flagged e-mails to your digital task lists (many task lists make this possible).

  d.Unflag all logged e-mails.

  2.Voice mail. Check your voice mail messages for Action items and log them. Delete your voice mails.

  3.Text or instant messages. Texting and IM are channels for quick and easy communication. But they are inconvenient for collecting Action items. Review the day’s texts for any requests you’ve been sent or promises you’ve made. Log them.

  4.Corporate communication software. Many companies use third-party or proprietary software to keep employees in touch. Many of these applications have their own calendars and task lists. Some of us may use them as our default planning tools for work. What we don’t want are two separate calendars and Action lists, one for work and one for personal use, unless we can view them in one consolidated way.

  5.Notetaking software. Cut-and-paste action items into your tools, or forward them via e-mail to your Action list.

  6.Social media. Cut-and-paste or transcribe any action items into your Action list.

  7.Digital “stickies” and desktop notes. Review and log these.

  8.Web browsers (on all devices). We sometimes accumulate “open” browser windows to prompt us to action. Log and close these by cutting-and-pasting or forwarding the Web addresses to your planning tools.

  Empty Physical Inputs

  Log Physical Inputs

  Clear and Log Digital Inputs

  9.Digital photos. We sometimes take photos on our mobile devices to prompt action or collect ideas. Log these as well.

  Third: Set the Table

  Now that we’ve cleared our physical and digital inputs, it’s time to do what chefs and cooks do: clean and tidy our workspace.

  For our physical workspace, we take a few seconds to do kichiri, or straightening, moving our tools and other objects on our desk so that we can see them all and they’re arranged in an orderly fashion. We can even wipe our space with a damp paper towel or cloth, a simple act that has a profound effect for many people.

  For our digital workspace, this means filing or trashing stray documents and closing background apps and windows.

  Everything before your eyes should look clear and open.

  Questions and Problems

  Can I work on some Action items immediately instead of logging them? If the tasks can be done quickly, yes. As long as executing Actions doesn’t prevent you from creating a rhythm and cleaning your station in approximately 15 minutes, acting on items like quick e-mail answers and things of that nature is perfectly fine. One example from my own Daily Meeze is bills: When I get one, I pay it right away. Remember: Whether moving on an action item or marking it for later action, you are still making first moves.

  What if I haven’t logged all my flagged e-mails? Don’t worry, they’re still flagged, still in your folder, and you can get to the rest of them tomorrow. But try to clear all your flags every day, or else the Actions in them may get buried over time. If you find it difficult to clear your flagged e-mails every day, consider scheduling a weekly or daily Routine to handle your e-mail backlog.

  How can I possibly clean my station in 15 minutes? Work quickly. Cleaning your station is not a time to carefully consider things, but to move your fingers and hands and arms and legs to get your stuff where it needs to be. If you receive 100 e-mails or more every day, clearing your inbox will be challenging. Half of those e-mails may need to be flagged for action. But those actions should have no immediate bearing on your ability to scan, flag, and sort the e-mails themselves. You have to actively and ruthlessly compress your time. Your Daily Meeze should be a hustle. Clearing your station is intense work, and it may become the most focused part of your day. A few mise-en-place ingredients help in this effort.

  ■Perfect your movements. Stand up. You’ll be less inclined to file and replace large items if you remain seated.

  ■Slow down to speed up. Working quickly comes from first working slowly. If you wish, give yourself a few days for an extended 60-minute Daily Meeze to get used to the motions and the decisions you have to m
ake. But once you’ve gone through the motions several times, speed them up.

  ■Finish the action. Slowing down also helps when you hit a particularly dense bit of input, like a long document of notes from a meeting that you must methodically pick over for action items. As you find yourself getting impatient or ornery, slow down. Breathe. Finish the action. Move through the work deliberately until it’s done. There: You don’t ever have to see that document again.

  ■Clean as you go. Avoid bad habits like dumping loose items on random surfaces during the course of your day. Try to get everything to your desk inbox.

  When cleaning our station, we must ensure that our inputs are cleared and that the Actions we’ve received are logged. This is the “wave” we must surmount and stay on top of every day.

  STEP TWO: SHARPEN YOUR TOOLS

  (approximately 5 minutes)

  The next step in your Daily Meeze, a quicker one, is to make sure your planning tools are in perfect order, adjusting and sorting all the Action items in your calendar and Action list.

  First: Adjust Your Calendar

  Part of creating today is redeeming yesterday. Look at your schedule’s past 24 hours. Now:

  1.Reschedule the appointments that didn’t happen or tasks that didn’t get done.