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Seth Godin has a terrific post titled Don’t Shave That Yak about how easily we are sidetracked from our tasks. It’s what happens when you want to wash the car but the hose is broken. So you need to go to Home Depot to buy a new one, but you can’t find your EZ Pass. You’d borrow your neighbor’s, but your kid borrowed his mooshi pillow and some of the stuffing fell out. So now you need yak hair to stuff the pillow and the next thing you know you’re at the zoo, shaving a yak.
The bigger the organization, Godin writes, the more likley that the task gets even more complex, or isn’t done at all.
For sure, organization is the hardest task of the day. My latest method is to make a list of all I need to do. I cover all but one task, do that, then cross it out and uncover one more. Otherwise, I spend the day worrying about how I won’t get it all done.