Working Smart

MenuMaster Now Available for Mac Intels

Unsanity has finally released a public beta of Menu Master, one of my all-time favorite utilities, for Mac Intel computers. I have been checking their Website daily since I got my MacBook Pro. It had become so much of my workflow that I found it difficult to get along without it. I installed the program with no problems and it appears to be stable.

Menu Master is a system enhancement that allows you to change or remove menu shortcut keys in any application with a simple press of the key. Pull the menu down, navigate to the menu item you want, and then press a keystroke combination. It is automatically assigned to the menu item and instantly appears on the menu item itself. Don’t like your choice, just press the backspace key and delete it. Very cool and very easy to use.

Menu Master is on my must-have list of Mac software. At $10.00, it’s a steal. Grab a copy and give it a whirl.

Technorati Tags: apple, cool software, macbook pro

Using Keyboard Shortcuts to Improve Your Productivity

I have never met anyone really productive who relied on the mouse. It’s just too inefficient. For example, consider the following two methods for saving a file in Microsoft Word. Imagine you’re typing a report. You realize you need to save your file.

Approach 1: You take your hand off the keyboard, grab your mouse, move the cursor to the File menu, move the cursor down to the Save menu item and then click on the mouse button. Your workflow is interrupted and it takes you a few minutes to get back in “the Zone.”

Approach 2: You simply press ⌘S on the Mac or Ctrl-S on the PC and keep working. This takes a fraction of the time and has the added advantage of not interrupting your workflow. And, because it is so easy, you do it every time you pause to think. This ensures that you are frequently saving your work in the event your computer crashes.

Which makes more sense? It’s pretty obvious, isn’t it. Yet few people take the time to really learn the standard operating system shortcuts (Mac or Windows). If you haven’t learned these already, I would urge you to do so. Over time, you will see a major boost in your productivity.

But in this post, I want to focus on creating keyboard shortcuts for common, non-operating system tasks. Whether you are using Microsoft Entourage or Outlook, the concept is the same. If you are going to use either one as your workflow “dashboard,” you can vastly increase your productivity by creating one-keystroke shortcuts to create new email messages, tasks, events, and notes. To do this, you need a third-party macro processor. This software will allow you to perform a series of actions with a single keystroke.

When I had a Windows machine, I used Keyboard Launchpad from Stardock Systems. It’s still only $9.95—a tremendous bargain. However, since switching to the Mac, I am using iKey from Scripts Software. Unfortunately, it is $30.00, but it is still much cheaper than QuicKeys, which is $79.95. (I used Keyboard Maestro for a while. It was only $20.00, but I found it buggy. It didn’t always work reliably. I’ve been using iKey for a few months and love it.)

Regardless of which program you use, here are some keyboard shortcuts I have found helpful. Keep in mind that on the Mac, ⇧ refers to the shift key, ⌃ refers to the Ctrl key, ⌥ refers to the Alt or Option key, and ⌘ refers to the Apple or command key.

Keystroke	Actions
⌥⌘c	Switch to Entourage from whatever application you are currently in. Select the File | New | Task command.
⌥⌘e	Switch to Entourage from whatever application you are currently in. Select the File | New | Calendar Event command.
⌥⌘k	Switch to Entourage from whatever application you are currently in. Select the File | New | Task command.
⌥⌘m	Switch to Entourage from whatever application you are currently in. Select the File| New | Mail Message command.
⌥⌘n	Switch to Entourage from whatever application you are currently in. Select the File | New | Note command.

The beauty of these shortcuts is that they allow you to get ideas out of your mind and into the appropriate receptacle (e.g., task list, calendar, note, etc.) as quickly as possible with the least amount of interruption to your workflow.

In addition to these, within Entourage, I have also created a keyboard shortcut for filing the current message in my Archive folder. I do not try to file messages into a more specific folder as some people do. For me, this adds unnecessary complexity to my email processing. I want to focus on deciding what action to take with the message and then filing it in a common folder, so I can always work toward maintaining an empty email inbox.

If you have to also decide what folder to file the message in, you cut your productivity in half. And, honestly, I don’t think it speeds up the retrieval process appreciably. Instead, I let Spotlight do the heavy lifting. (If you are using Outlook on the PC, I recommend Lookout, a small add-in that plugs into Outlook and makes searching within messages a snap.) So, I just dump every message in an Archive folder and leave it at that. This enables me to fly through my email.

In order to set up such a shortcut in Entourage, first make sure you have a folder named “Archive” under your inbox. Then select a message. It doesn’t matter which one. Select Message | Move To. If you see the name of your folder, write down the exact name. For example, mine is “Archive (mhyatt)”. The “mhyatt” part indicates that the folder is actually a subfolder in my main Exchange mailbox.

If you don’t see the name of your folder, then select Choose Folder..., then select your folder. Press the Move key. This will actually move the message, so you may want to retrieve it manually and place it back in your inbox. Then re-read the last paragraph and get the exact name of the folder.

Okay, now you are ready to create the shortcut. Go to System Preferences | Keyboard & Mouse | Keyboard Shortcuts. Click on the + button, then select Microsoft Entourage as the Application. Then enter the exact name of your Archive folder in the Menu Title field. Finally, enter the keystroke combination you want to use in the Keyboard Shortcut field. Press OK. That’s it.

Now quit Entourage and relaunch it. You should now be able to use your shortcut to move messages to your Archive folder with a single keystroke. You’ll be surprised at how much this speeds up your workflow.

This is just a start. Pay attention to how you work. Whenever you find yourself doing the same thing over and over, automate it with a single keyboard shortcut. This will keep you focused on the work at hand, and free your mind up for more creative problem-solving.

Technorati Tags: entourage, gtd, mac, productivity, workflow

What’s the Secret to Your Success?

As a CEO, I get asked this a lot. And, I'm always a little embarrassed by it. For the most part, I get the question from people who are in their twenties. They want to know “the secret path to the top.”

This past weekend, I received an email from one of my readers. He started, “I have an MBA, but I must have missed the course on Fast-Tracking My Career. If you had to boil it down to one thing, Mr. Hyatt, what would you recommend to a young, aspiring person such as myself?”

I'm not sure I could boil it down to one thing. Life isn’t usually that simple. But if I really, really had to boil it down to one thing, I would say this: responsiveness.

So many people I meet are unresponsive. They don’t return their phone calls promptly. They don’t answer their emails quickly. They don’t complete their assignments on time. They promise to do something and never follow through. They have to be reminded, prodded, and nagged. This behavior creates work for everyone else and eats into their own productivity. Sadly, they seem oblivious to it.

When I was a kid, we used to play “Tag.” The objective was simple: keep from becoming “It.” If someone tagged you (touched you), you became “it” until you tagged someone else. Whoever was “it” when the game ended, lost.

Business is very similar. People “tag” us in countless ways every day. They place calls. They send emails. They mention something to us in a meeting. Suddenly, we are “it.” And, just like the game, if you stay “it” too long, you lose. The only winning strategy is to respond quickly and make someone else “it.”

Reality is that we live in an “instant world.” People want instant results. They don’t want to wait. And if they have to wait on you, their frustration and resentment grows. They begin to see you as an obstacle to getting their work done. If that happens, it will begin to impact your reputation. Pretty soon people start saying, “I can never get a timely response from him,” or “When I send her an email, I feel like it goes into a black hole,” or worse, your colleagues just roll their eyes and sigh at the mention of your name.

Yet, these are the very people who will push you up or pull you down. You cannot succeed without the support of your peers and subordinates. (Go back and re-read that sentence again.)

As I was making my way to the top, my former boss, Sam Moore, used to ask everyone I worked with, “What’s it like to work with Mike?” “How’s he really doing?” “Do you think he could take on more responsibility?” In responding to him, all they had was their experience with me. If I hadn’t been responsive to them, how do you think they would have responded to his questions? “More responsibility? Are you kidding me? He can’t handle what he has now!” It wouldn’t take too many candid responses like that to tank my career.

And yet this happens to people all the time. I can’t tell you how many meetings I have sat in where people are complaining about someone else’s work habits. “He always waits until the last minute.” “She never plans ahead.” “I can never get him to respond to my emails.” You may think that the people who are making these comments are too far down the food chain to matter. I can assure you they aren’t. They have a way of bubbling to the top where the decisions about your career are made.

The truth is, you are building your reputation—your brand—one response at a time. People are shaping their view of you by how you respond to them. If you are slow, they assume you are incompetent and over your head. If you respond quickly, they assume you are competent and on top of your work. Their perception, whether you realize it or not, will determine how fast your career advances and how high you go. You can’t afford to be unresponsive. It is a career-killer.

My basic rule is this: respond immediately unless there is a good reason to wait. Obviously, this isn’t always possible, especially since I spend so much time in meetings. Nevertheless, I rarely let messages sit longer than a day. Twenty-four hours is the outside edge. If you can’t respond now, then at least acknowledge that you have received the message: “I received your message. I don’t have time to give it the attention it deserves right now, but you can expect to hear from me before the end of the day tomorrow.”

The great thing about being responsive is that it will quickly differentiate you from your peers. People love doing business with responsive people. Nothing will advance your career faster than this.

Technorati Tags: email, gtd, planning, productivity, workflow

Sentencing Application Software to Death Row

I download lots of software. If it looks interesting or promises to increase my productivity, I give it a whirl. Sometimes, it is a truly helpful application and becomes part of my regular workflow. Often, it is something I need for a special project and I never use it again.

Unfortunately, after a year of using my Mac—and loving it!—it looks like I have almost 150 apps installed on my PowerBook. This is way too much clutter. I need to simplify my life—and regain some much-needed hard disk space.

So I created a “Death Row” folder. I then moved any program I haven't used in a while to this folder. I plan to sequester the files for the next 30 days. Then I’ll revisit the folder and decide which programs get pardoned (moved back to the Applications folder) and which get annihilated (sent to the Trash bin).

Currently, I have 60 inmates on Death Row. I feel better already!

Technorati Tags: mac, productivity, clutter, workflow

My Daily Reading List

I read a lot. Books, magazines, blogs, and especially the Web versions of newspapers.

I am often asked what is on my daily reading list. In addition to the Bible, here's my daily list of reading.

• 43 Folders
• The Unofficial Apple Weblog
• Marc's Outlook on Productivity
• C\Net News.com
• CNN.com
• DrudgeReport.com
• GoogleNews.com
• NewYorkTimes.com
• OfficeZealot.com
• Tennessean.com
• The Wall Street Journal Online
• USAToday.com

I do my reading in the morning before I shower or get dressed. I'm a morning person, so it's first on my list, along with a giant cup of Starbucks coffee.

I force myself to read fast. I spend no more than an hour reading through my list. (This doesn't include books, which I read at other times.) I save articles I may want to reference in the future in a “Research” folder.

By the way, these are all stored in a Safari Bookmarks Bar in a subfolder called “!Daily”. The exclamation sign insures that it sorts first in the list. When I am ready to plow through my daily reading, I click on the list and select “Open in Tabs.” Each URL is then opened in a Safari tab. You can do a similar thing in Firefox (available in Mac or Windows flavors) or even Maxthon for you Windows diehards.

Technorati Tags: daily, reading, workflow

Automated Email Follow-up

In my experience as a manager, delegation is the easy part. Follow-up is the hard part. This is particularly true when it comes to e-mail.

I’m afraid that in the race to get through the scores of messages that daily hit our inbox, we hit the proverbial ball over the net, but never really follow-up to see what happened when the ball arrives in the other person’s court. Was it hit back? Was it tossed to someone else? Or, did it just hit the court and lay there with a hundred other balls. If it was the latter, then you really didn’t accomplish anything.

Delegation is a method for managers to get more work done. But if we don’t follow-up, we’ve only deceived ourselves, thinking that more work is getting done. The only way to really change this is to create a culture of follow-up (more about that in a future post) and be relentless with it.

One of the basic questions you have to ask as you go through your e-mail is whether or not this item requires an action. Sometimes, you will determine that you are the right person to take the next action. Often, you will determine that someone else is.

Technorati Tags: davidallen, gtd, productivity, workflow

Let’s assume it’s the latter. You forward the e-mail to the appropriate person and ask them to follow-up. But here’s where the system breaks down. We all know that some people are better at follow-up than others. With a few people, I can check it off my list (and dump it from my mind) when I make the assignment. But for all others, I either have to write the assignment down somewhere and then review this list regularly or I have to just trust that they will follow-up and hope for the best. As someone once told me, “hope is not a strategy.”

I have to admit, I am not too good at writing down every assignment. More often than I would like to admit, I hope people will follow-through, but I don’t loop back around to ensure that they did. Shame on me. Customers, fellow-employees, vendors don’t like to hear, “Well, I passed the buck to Fred. You'll have to check with him.” Instead, they are dying for someone to take full responsibility and follow through to the end. They want to hear your version of the Harry Truman quote, “The buck stops here.”

So how can we make it easier to follow-up on assignment that we delegate via e-mail? One option is to buy David Allen's Getting Things Done Outlook Add-In. If you use Outlook, this is worth taking a look at. It places a follow-up button onto every e-mail message. It’s very cool. When I was a Windows user, I found it indispensable. But it also does a lot of things that may make it difficult to justify the $69.95 cost. And, of course, if you are a Mac user, you are completely out of luck.

I would like to outline a solution that is very simple—and, best of all, free. Here’s how it works:

1. Create a free e-mail account at any one of the free services. I use Google's GMail. But there are many others available, including Yahoo, Mail.com, and Excite.
   
   
2. Set up an email address like “waitingfor.abc@gmail.com,” where the “abc” portion is your initials or some other identifier. If you have read David Allen’s book, you know that he recommends “Waiting For” as a category of items you use to list the projects that are in someone else’s court. You are “waiting for” them to do something, before you can proceed.
   
   
3. Set up your new account in your e-mail client. This will be different for each e-mail client, but most of these free e-mail services will walk you through the process.
   
   
4. Now create a folder under your inbox called “Waiting For.” For example, here’s how my inbox folder structure currently looks:
   
   



5. Now create a simple email rule that redirects all the e-mail coming from your “waitingfor” account to to the “Waiting For” folder. This process will be different, depending on the e-mail client you are using.

Okay, you’re ready to go. Now, whenever you want to track an assignment that you are delegating via e-mail, just enter your “waitingfor” e-mail address in the BCC field. (Since most e-mail software packages sport an auto-fill feature, you can generally do this with a few keystrokes.) Now, send your e-mail. If everything is set up correctly, your e-mail will go out from your main account and you will receive back an e-mail from your new “waitingfor” account. Your email rule will automatically file it in your “Waiting For” folder.

Now, during your weekly review (you are doing a “weekly review” aren't you?), you simply go to the Waiting For folder and review the assignments you have made. When the item has been completed to your satisfaction, you can drag the message to your e-mail archive. That’s all there is to it. Simple, elegant, and free.

A Better To-Do List

I don’t often devote an entire blog post to someone else’s blog, but this is an exception. One of my favorite bloggers is Merlin Mann at 43Folders. He’s the one that got me into using a Moleskine notebook. He’s also a Mac user and an expert at applying the workflow management principles articulated by David Allen in Getting Things Done.

Today, he wrote the first article in a two-part series, entitled Building a Smarter To-Do List. This should be required reading for everyone in the workplace. I continue to be amazed at the number of people who don’t know how to intelligently manage their workflow. But, then again, where is this kind of thing taught?

The article is very, very basic, but invaluable. I strongly urge you to stop what you are doing now (you’re just surfing, right?) and go read the article. Even as a seasoned GTD practitioner, I learned a number of things. I am eagerly awaiting the second installment tomorrow.

Technorati Tags: davidallen, gtd, planning, workflow, productivity, todo, todolists

Recovering the Lost Art of Note-Taking

Note: The latest version of this post is here on my current blog, From Where I Sit.

I spend most of my work-life in meetings. Note-taking is a survival skill. Yet, I am surprised at how few people bother to take notes in meetings. Those who do sometimes express frustration at how ineffective the exercise seems to be. In this post, I’d like to expound on why I think you should take notes in meetings and then offer a few suggestions on how to do it better.

1. Note-taking enables you to stay engaged. The real benefit is not what happens after the meeting but during the meeting itself. If I don’t take notes, my mind wanders. I daydream. As they say, “the lights are on, but no one is home.” However, when I take notes, I find that I stay more alert, focused, and actively involved. My contribution to the meeting is thus more likely to add value to the topic under discussion. This is why I take notes even if someone is officially taking minutes.

2. Note-taking provides a mechanism for capturing your ideas, questions, and commitments. Not everything can be resolved in the meeting. Some ideas require incubation. Questions require further research. Commitments require follow-up that cannot be done until after the meeting. Regardless, note-taking provides a way to capture the content of the meeting, so that I can processes it after the meeting.


3. Note-taking communicates the right things to the other attendees. When someone takes notes, it communicates to everyone else that they are actively listening. It also communicates that what others are saying is important—it is worth making the effort to record their insights. If you are in a leadership position, it also subtly establishes accountability. Your people think, If the boss is writing it down, he probably intends to follow-up. I better pay attention. As a leader, your example speaks volumes. If you take notes, your people will likely take notes. If you don’t, it is likely they won’t.

But how can you more effectively take notes? Let me offer four suggestions:

1. Use a journal-formatted notebook. If you have something else that is working, great. Stick with it. If not, I recommend one of the Moleskine notebooks. The name (officially pronounced mol-a-skeen-a, although it can vary) comes from the French spelling of ‘moleskin,’ which the oilcloth covering resembles. I use the Large Ruled Journal and never go anywhere without it.


2. Keep your meeting notes as a running journal. I give each new meeting (or topic) its own heading, along with the current date. The notes run continuously until I fill up the journal. Then I begin a new one.


3. Use symbols so you can quickly scan your notes later. I indent my notes from the left edge of the paper about half an inch. This allows me to put my symbols in the left margin. I use four:


1. If an item is particularly important or insightful, I put a star next to it.


2. If an item requires further research or resolution, I put a question mark next to it.


3. If an item requires follow-up, I put a ballot box (open square) next to it. When the item is completed, I check it off.


4. If I have assigned a follow-up item to someone, I put an open circle next to it (similar to the ballot box but a circle rather than a square). In the notes, I indicate who is responsible. When the item is completed, I check it off.


4. Schedule time to review your notes. This is the secret. I scan my notes immediately after the meeting if possible. If that is not possible, then I do it at the end of my workday. If I miss several days, I do it during my weekly review. Regardless, I take action on those items that I can do in less than two-minutes. Those that will take longer I enter into Entourage (or Outlook for you PC users) either as a task or an appointment.

That’s all there is to it. If you have additional suggestions, I would love to hear from you.

I Finally Took the Plunge

I am now officially a Mac PowerBook user. I bought one of the new 15“ models, which has 40% more screen space than the more compact 12” model. It also has a faster processor (1.67 GHz), bigger hard drive (80 GB), faster FireWire port (800 Mb/sec), a SuperDrive (CD-RW, DVD-RW), s-video port (for playing DVDs on a TV or external monitor), and 1 GB of RAM.

I’m finally getting used to the keyboard, which was the first hurdle. This is always a challenge with a new computer. However, it was particularly tough with the Mac, probably because I have been using PCs for two decades. The PC keyboard had become an extension of my brain. I had to re-map my neurological circuitry and that was more difficult than I anticipated.

First, I had had to learn the difference between the Command, Option, Ctrl, and Fn shift keys. The functionality is not exactly parallel to the PC. In addition, there’s a Backspace key (called “Delete” on the Mac) but no “Del” key like on the PC. I eventually learned you can get the same action by pressing Option-Delete. You can also delete the word to the left of the cursor by clicking Shift-Option-Delete. Confused? So was I. But, it’s beginning to feel more natural all the time.

The next challenge was porting my workflow. I had to either buy and learn the Mac version of familiar programs or find new programs to replace those that didn't have a Mac version. Microsoft Office was an easy switch. I had to learn a few new keyboard shortcuts (e.g., Ctrl-U to edit an Excel cell instead of F2), but other than that, the functionality is basically the same. In fact, if anything, the Office 2004 on the Mac is more advanced on the Mac. The Project Center is particularly cool. It allows me to view on one screen all the appointments, tasks, e-mail messages, documents, and notes related to a specific project. This alone would almost be reason enough to make the switch. It is also available across the full suite of Microsoft Office applications.

Entourage is the Mac version of Outlook—sort of. It seamlessly integrates with our corporate Exchange Server. My assistant is using a PC, and she can still interact with me in the same way, including monitoring my e-mail messages, replying on my behalf, and manipulating my calendar.

Entourage does most of the things Outlook does, along with a few things Outlook doesn’t do. For example, you can’t access Outlook’s Out of Office Assistant (you can work around this by using Microsoft Outlook Web Access), but you can tag items with a virtually unlimited number of categories and/or projects. I also like the fact that you can add functionality using AppleScripts, though I no longer have access to Outlook Add-Ins like David Allen’s GTD add-in.

The thing I have enjoyed the most in this experience is discovering entirely new applications that have no real equivalent in the PC world. There are numerous examples of this, but the most notable is QuickSilver. Where do I start? It’s kind of like ActiveWords on the PC but without the need to assign words to actions.

You can invoke QuickSilver from any application using an assigned hot key. You then begin typing a search, hit the tab key, and then determine an appropriate action. For example, I press Option-Command-Space, start typing “George Bush”, press the tab key, select e-mail, and—bam!—I am staring at a new e-mail message addressed to George. However, this description doesn’t really do it justice, because the program “learns from me” the more I use it. Each time it takes fewer keystrokes. This is truly a program you have to try to appreciate.

The best part of the Mac experience so far is that the technology simply works. I have yet to experience software conflicts, viruses and spyware infections, and endless tinkering and tweaking. Installing a printer, an Apple Airport Express, or some other peripheral is easy and painless. The bottom line is that I am simply spending more time getting real work done. And that’s what I was hoping for by making the switch.

The Master Task List

For several years now, I have profited from using a “Master Task List.” This is a way to group your work-related activities so that you do what you were hired to do and keep from getting side-tracked by “trivial pursuits.”

I first learned this technique from Todd Duncan, whose book, Time Traps, is a must read. (In the interest of full disclosure, my company, Thomas Nelson, publishes the book.) It is subtitled, “Proven Strategies for Swamped Salespeople,” but don’t let this put you off. Even if you aren’t in sales, this book has news you can use. Every page is loaded with time-saving tips and techniques for managing your workflow.

“Master Tasking” is the process of identifying your five to seven most productive, most important work-related tasks. A Master Task List is similar to a job description but more useful. It answers the question, “What was I really hired to do?” Here are some characteristics of master tasks:

• They are usually important but not urgent.
• They spell the difference between success and failure.
• You have a hard time getting to them.
• They are things you usually do on your own.
• They can be scheduled but usually aren’t.

The purpose of developing a Master Task List is to enable you to focus more easily on those activities that really add value to your department, your division, and your company. Once you have a Master Task List you can measure your performance against it. More importantly, you can schedule these activities so you accomplish the most important tasks related to your job.

Master Tasking will enable you to become more productive, more successful, more confident, less frustrated, and less stressed. It is one of the major reasons why I have gotten as far as I have in my career. Others who have practiced it have reported similar results. It’s a high pay-off activity for a relatively small investment of time.

Your Master Task List should be written down and periodically reviewed. Each Master Task should be stated as a broad activity area; for example, “Manuscript Development,” “Copywriting,” “Travel Planning,” “Financial Review,” etc. Then, you should list three to seven bulleted subpoints that represent the specific activities related to that particular Master Task.

For example, I have a master task called “Investor Relations.” Here are the activities associated with that Master Task:

• Co-leading the quarterly earnings conference calls
• Making presentations to prospective investors
• Returning phone calls to investors
• Overseeing the creation of the Annual Report
• Returning calls to analysts and answering questions

Notice that each Master Task list activity begins with a gerund (i.e., a noun formed from a verb). The idea is to make these action-oriented. These are things you do.

To give you a real-life example, here’s my current Master Task List:

Master Task List

1. Managing Up
1. Meeting with the Chairman
2. Responding to the Chairman’s requests
3. Providing the Chairman with agreed-upon reports
4. Preparing for Board of Directors’ meetings
5. Making presentations to Board of Directors
   
   
2. Business Planning
1. Casting corporate vision
2. Defining corporate strategy
3. Reviewing Group and Divisional Strategic Plans
4. Reviewing Group and Divisional Annual Plans
   
   
3. New Business Development
1. Identifying new internal growth opportunities
2. Commissioning plans for new internal growth opportunities
3. Identifying new acquisition opportunities
4. Meeting with and courting prospective sellers
5. Evaluating acquisition opportunities
6. Recommending acquisition opportunities
   
   
4. Employee Development
1. Coaching my direct reports
2. Challenging my direct reports to think bigger
3. Preparing for and chairing weekly Publisher Roundtable Meetings
4. Meeting weekly with my direct reports
5. Preparing for and conducting direct report reviews
6. Recruiting and hiring new executive team members
   
   
5. Author Relations
1. Monitoring the performance of our top ten authors
2. Visiting each of our top ten authors on an annual basis
3. Building relationships with our top ten authors
   
   
6. Customer Relations
1. Monitoring the revenues of the company's top ten customers
2. Visiting each of our top ten customers, in-person, on an annual basis
3. Building relationships with our top ten customers
   
   
7. Investor Relations
1. Co-leading the quarterly earnings conference calls
2. Making presentations to prospective investors
3. Returning phone calls to investors
4. Overseeing the creation of the Annual Report
5. Returning calls to analysts and answering questions
   
   
8. Media Relations
1. Overseeing corporate publicity
2. Representing the company to the local and trade press
3. Returning calls to the press and answering questions
4. Building relationships with the press
   
   
9. Financial Oversight
1. Chairing monthly financial review meetings with group and division leaders
2. Reviewing and approving financial decisions that exceed the approval level of my direct reports
3. Providing direction and guidelines to the annual budget process
4. Reviewing and certifying 10Ks and 10Qs prior to filing
5. Insuring that we exceed our financial objectives

Once you have completed your Master Task List, you can begin scheduling these on your calendar. This is a process Todd Duncan calls “Time Blocking.” It ensures that you schedule your priorities and make time to do the things that are truly important. I will elaborate on this in a future post.