Not All Tasks Are Created Equally

Effective task management is a skill that many people struggle with.  Our work environment is filled with all sorts of distractions and it is only natural for the average worker to spiral into a type of 'task scramble'-- working on a bunch of things but not really geting much done.  And without task completion, where is the value?

I wanted to dedicate a blog entry to how to stratify tasks based on value.  Feel free bring a copy of this to your next team meeting. Ask your group to follow these rules and watch productivity rise! 

This may seem simple, but every task you will attempt to tackle today can be classified into four distinct groups.


"Hands Off" tasks drain your day and add little value.  There is a reason why major corporations are attempting to manage the social media debate: what networking value they generate seldom warrants the time consumed.  Spending office time booking dinner reservations or reserving court time? No way is this driving core business.  These tasks must be discouraged, monitored and even disciplined. 


"Minimal Value" tasks are, in my opinion, the disabler of today's office. We all can acknowledge that "Hands Off" tasks add negative value, but being mired in a sea of administrative activities (non-critical emails, printing documents, etc.) does little to move your organization forward.  Many staff members find solace in completing a laundry list of these tasks because it feels like they are getting things done.  But what are they really doing?  What are they creating?  What is the real contribution? As a manager, you need to educate your team on how to avoid being trapped by the treadmill temptation of these tasks.  There are many strategies that can be used to help staff effectively manage this segment and I am happy to assist you with this if required.


Things start to get interesting with "Moderate Value" tasks. These include introducing new process improvements, developing and selling business proposals for important and growing clients, and enabling strategy.  These are the types of activities that you, as manager, should be spending at least 80% of your day tackling.  These tasks propel your company; they generate innovative growth and increase shareholder value.  These are the tasks that should matter most to 95% of your team and while they themselves might not necessarily fill up the bulk of their with such activities, it is your job as their manager to make sure that they spend as much time as possible in this space.

Who wouldn't like to spend significant amounts of their working lives on"Super Value" tasks?  Developing corporate mission statements, visions and overall longer range strategic direction:  these types of tasks are what the likes of Mark Zuckerberg and Donald Trump spend their day crafting.  While Super Value tasks appear to be distanced from the daily operating issues of the company, they are in fact the corporate engines defining corporate identity in the decades to come.  In my experience, far too many companies undervalue these tasks.  Why? Perhaps they don't see their direct value line of sight.  But more likely, everyone in the company is too focused on low value tasks, so they don't have time to think of the big picture.


My Point
As a manager, you must ensure that your team focuses on value-added tasks.  You must drive everyone to allocate at least 80% of their time yo "Moderate Value" tasks as discussed above.  Rationalize "Low Value" tasks as much as possible and discipline "Hands Off" out of the working day.  Live these values yourself and never, ever under-appreciate the importance of  "Super Value" Tasks.