“Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.” — Theodore Roosevelt

Your Outcome: Learn how to deal with a barrage of incoming action items and demands on your time.

Welcome to day 13 of 30 Days of Getting Results. In day 12, we learned how to use Productivity Personas to analyze and improve our results in any situation. Today, we learn how to “triage” an overflowing plate of action items and tasks.
Triage is a Healthy Process of Sorting, Sifting, and Selecting

“Triage” is a process of sorting, sifting and selecting what to work on. You might have heard about doctors “triaging” their incoming patients in emergency settings. When I first joined Microsoft, “Triage” was a common practice our team used to deal with our incoming issues. It helped us sort our backlogs and queues of issues into more meaningful buckets. We couldn’t just do everything at once and we couldn’t keep up with our flow of incoming requests. Triaging helped us more effectively make the most of our time, energy, and resources we had on hand at the moment against our incoming actions.

Triage in Practice
I’ve used triage successfully to deal with everything from dealing with email, to dealing with a flood of incoming tasks, to dealing with aging backlogs of action items, both at the personal, and the team level. When I lead a distributed team, I use email triage as an ad hoc and lightweight way to get the team’s eyeballs quickly focused on an issue. I’ve also used triage to clear my email inbox and to keep my email at zero inbox for years, and I’ve shown many others, including teams around Microsoft, to do the same (and we have a lot of email at Microsoft.) I affectionately call this approach, The Zen of Zero Mail.

For things that you need to act on, prioritize, or get off your plate, “triage” is a healthy process of sorting and selecting in a mindful way.

Do It, Queue It, Schedule It, or Delegate It
You can triage an incoming action item to either do it, queue it, schedule it, or delegate it:

Do It – Do it if now is the time: it’s the next best thing for you to do; now is the most opportunistic time; or it will cost you more pain, time or effort to do it later.
Queue It – Queue it, by adding it to your queue if it’s something you need to get done, but now is not the right time. A queue is simply a list of action items.
Schedule It – Schedule it by adding it to your calendar if you need a block of time to get the work done. Only add things to your calendar if you truly need a reminder or if you really need to block off a chunk of time to work on it. Remember that if you schedule it, it will happen, but if you don’t, it won’t. If it’s really important, then make time for it. If it’s just something to do “later,” and it won’t really happen, then just let it go with skill.
Delegate It – Delegate it if it’s something that should be done by somebody else and it makes sense to do so, and you have that option. When you delegate, try to match it to another person’s learning opportunity or passion. (There’s a difference between delegating and dumping.)
3 Steps to Triaging Your Action Items
Here are three steps for triaging your stack of action items:

Consolidate your action items. Dealing with them in a batch really shows the benefit of this approach, because you can quickly whack your stack down to size.
Triage each item. For each item, determine what the best plan of attack is: Do It, Queue It, Schedule It, or Delegate It.
Repeat the process. Repeat the process until you have a manageable set of actions and you feel that things are appropriately in the right places, either in your list of actions, your queue, or your schedule, or off your plate. If you end up spending too much time triaging, and not enough time doing, then establish a timebox or time limit to pace yourself and to know when to stop.
Really what you’re doing is setting the stage for your success. By having a time for things, and having them on your calendar or in your queue, you can focus on what you have in front of you with more confidence, clarity, and conviction, knowing that you’re making the most of what you’ve got. You can also more effectively prioritize with MUST, SHOULD, and COULD.

Questions to Help Guide You
Here are some questions I find useful as a checkpoint:

What do you want to accomplish?
Does it matter?
How important is it?
What’s the impact?
What’s the next best thing to do?
You can always check your actions against the bigger picture and what you want to accomplish: This is just a starting point and you’ll want to create and test your own questions to see what works for you.

Putting It All Together
Let’s take a quick step back and do a rundown of what you’ve learned so far during 30 Days of Getting Results and how this fits in:

You can use The Rule of 3 to avoid getting overwhelmed.
You’re the author of your life and you can write your story forward, one moment or one day at a time
You can use three stories to drive your day and and light up your day by connecting to your values (Daily Outcomes).
On Mondays, you can use three stories to drive your week (Monday Vision).
On Fridays, you can use Friday Reflection to celebrate your wins and find your personal success patterns.
You can map out what’s important in your life using Hot Spots to create a meaningful map.
You can let things slough off with skill … no more straws breaking the camel’s back .
You can create space in your life to renew and recharge by setting up boundaries and buffers.
You can dump your brain to free up your mind.
You can prioritize more effectively by using MUST, SHOULD, and COULD.
You can feel strong all week long by spending more time in your strengths and less time in your weaknesses.
You can establish glide-paths to simplify your day and make your routines friction free.
You can analyze and be more productive in any scenario using productivity personas.
By adding triaging to your belt, you now have a simple mental model for dealing with incoming action items more effectively.

Agile Results is a simple system for meaningful results that you can use to support you for the rest of your life, no matter what you do. The beauty is not just that it’s simple or that it’s proven … it’s that each day you get a new chance at bat – a fresh start. Each day you wake up is another chance to ask the question, “What are three things you want for today?” … and so you write your story forward, one day at a time.

Today’s Assignment

When an incoming action item comes your way, triage it and decide whether to Do It, Queue It, Schedule It, or Delegate It.
Triage one of your stacks of things to do to whack it down to size.


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“Our chief want is someone who will inspire us to be what we know we could be.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Your Outcome: Become a “productive artist.” Find whether you are a “starter” or a “finisher” and improve your success in everything you do.

Some people are natural “starters.”  They live for the creative beginning of projects, but not the day-to-day execution or the detailed follow up and follow through.  Some people are natural “finishers.”  They like the day-to-day work and the routine execution. When “starters” and “finishers” pair up, everybody wins.

Welcome to day 12 of 30 Days of Getting Results.  In day 11, we learned how to reduce friction and create glide paths for your day.  Today, we learn how to figure out our strengths and weaknesses when it comes to productivity using Productivity personas.  The beauty is that you can Productivity personas to get a better lens on yourself, your situation, or people you work with.  With this lens, you can be more effective and get better results in any situation, whether it’s a one-man band or part of a team.

Starters and Finishers
One of my friends is great at starting things.  Just don’t expect him to finish.  He would light a lot of fires in a lot of places and then he’d be on to his next big idea.  Trust me, unless you want to just fade away, you want fire starters around.  They light things up and create value and possibilities out of thin air.  He’s a natural “starter.”

Another one of my friends is great at finishing things.  He is a master at knowing the details and being complete.  Words that come to mind are “thorough,” “attention to detail,” “responsible,” “sees things through,” … you get the idea.  What he lacks in getting things started, he makes up for in bringing things to close and going the last mile.   He is a “finisher” at heart.

When a starter and finisher pair up … look out.  Great things happen. The fastest way to suck your life force out of anyone is to always play the “finisher” role when you’re a starter, or always play a starter role when you’re a finisher.

Why Productivity PersonasYour personal success at getting results is clearly a place where a little knowledge goes a long way.  By adding the lens of Productivity Personas to your tool belt, you will be better equipped to deal with any productivity issue, whether it’s for yourself, helping a friend, or leading a team.

If you’re feeling drained or like you’re spinning your wheels or simply not making the impact you know you can make, this might just be your ticket to faster, simpler, and better results.

3 Ways to Use Productivity PersonasHere are three ways you can use the Productivity Personas to your advantage:

1. Know Yourself. Use the Productivity Personas to know yourself. If you’re aware of the personas, you can use them to your advantage. For example, don’t let your inner Critic or Perfectionist get in the way of your Doer. Ask yourself, “When am I at my best? Am I more of a Starter or a Finisher? Am I more of a Maximizer or a Simplifier? Am I more of a Thinker or a Doer?”
2. Team Up. Use the Productivity Personas to pair up with other people and improve your own effectiveness. You can also use the Productivity Personas to create more effective teams or to optimize teamwork. Ask yourself, “Who can I team up with to get results? How can I build more effective teams? Who should be paired up on the team for best results?”
3. Improve the Situation. You can imagine how some behaviors work better with others and how some can create conflict. Swap out for more effective personas based on the scenario. For example, if you really need a Starter for the situation, but you can’t break out of Finisher mode, then see if you can find somebody who can play the role. Ask yourself, “What are the best behaviors for the situation?”

Remember to use the Productivity Personas as a lens. The labels are for behaviors, not for limiting or boxing in personalities. Anybody can demonstrate any of the behaviors at any time.

Productivity Personas at a Glance“Starter” and “finisher” are just one lens.  Here are some additional Productivity Personas to give you some more lenses:

Persona	Notes
Starter	Starts things but doesn’t always finish. Their energy comes from thinking up new ideas and kicking things off. Love prototyping an idea, but once they’ve figured it out, they’re ready to move on to something else.
Finisher	Brings things to closure. Effective finishers, complete things and move on. Is a fit and finish type of person. It’s finished when they say it’s finished.
Thinker	Is an “ideas” person. Thinking is what they do best. Analysis is their game, but doing is somebody else’s game. They don’t have to act on their thoughts to enjoy them.
Doer	Does their job. They tend to get their job done. They may not come up with new ideas, but they have a preference for taking action.
Simplifier	Finds the simplest path. Strips things down to the minimum. Good enough for now is OK in their book.
Maximizer	Finds the maximum impact.
Critic	Finds the faults. They’ll find ways why you can’t or why it’s wrong. They’ll critique themselves, their work, or their ideas. Anything is fair game.
Can Do	Finds a way. Where there’s a will, there’s a way, and they’ll find it. It may not be the optimal solution, but they’ll find a workaround.
Opportunist	Finds the opportunity in any situation.
Perfectionist	Treats everything like a work of art. Quality is their name, finishing isn’t their game. They’ll be done when it’s done. It will be done just as soon as it’s perfect. Whenever that is.
Details	Loves the details and will want to see things through. Dots the i’s and crosses the t’s. They’re passionate about spreadsheets.
Big Picture	Sees the forest from the trees. Likes the big ideas and doesn’t want to get lost in the minutia.
Facts and Figures	Is a numbers person. They want quantifiable measurements. Like Details, they too like spreadsheets.
Controller	Likes to control things. This could be the Doers, the project, or their world.
Tinkerer	Likes to tinker. The world is their sandbox. Dabbles here, dabbles there.
Marketer	Communicates the value. Knows how to sell ideas.
Achiever	Likes to accomplish things.
Randomizer	Turns their latest priority into other people’s problems.
Daydreamer	Likes to dream up better ways for better days. They’d rather dream than do. They don’t have to act on their dreams to enjoy them.
Procrastinator	Finds way to put off to tomorrow, what they really should do today. They only send belated birthday cards since they know they’ll never send them out on time.

Simply familiarize yourself with some of the various Productivity Personas so they can help you when you need to make sense of a productivity challenge or scenario, as well as to learn more about yourself.  The key is to be aware of the preferences, for yourself and others, and to choose more effective behaviors as well as to optimize yourself and others in any situation.

Your Assignment

1. Identify your natural preferences in terms of a “starter” or “finisher.”
2. Identify the most common Productivity Personas or roles that you play in your day to day.
3. Find one simple thing you can do to complement your natural productivity pattern.

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