Ditch Your To-Do List and Use These Docs To Make More Impact

Write down only three things you would be very disappointed to go into the weekend without completing.

Place it on a post-it and move it around or stick it to different places throughout the week to make it easier to see what needs to be done.

It's a collection of the various things you're proud of (screenshots, emails, pings, feedback, etc.) This scrapbook can provide a great raw data set for the things that give you energy and make you tick.

Maintaining this can teach you what really satisfies you. Some things you think you really like doing, but they never appear in this document. Conversely, you may add things you don't think you care about, but you really do.

The snag log covers the things that bogged you down or you severely disliked. For example "Still can't get this query to run" or "that was a waste of time".

This document helps to express annoyance, frustration, or disappointment. More importantly, it helps to identify broader patterns in your attitude towards work. You can recognise problems early before they turn into bigger issues.

This document is a list of things you learned, usually in bullet form. It can be things such as technical details, observations about working styles (“Doris reads emails closely, even if she doesn’t respond”), personal details you want to remember about colleagues (“Deep has a 3-year-old son named Leo”) or personal insights (“Jordan says that I’m usually the most optimistic voice in the room”).

Date them so you can understand the timing and context.

Using your OSR to guide you, look at all the things you shipped and jot down some notes about their impact. Focus on observable outcomes. (What users and colleagues said or did as a result, what/how metrics moved.)

This will become important during performance reviews but will also help to understand what work actually generates impact.

Me-sat is evaluating your own satisfaction. It is similar to a company satisfaction survey, but you just turn the question on yourself.

Some valuable exercises:

• Satisfaction Litmus Test. Score yourself between 1-4 on four core drivers of satisfaction: enjoyed it, got stuff done, progressed goals, learning. Average them together to create an overall "Me Sat."
• Contribute to Your “Four Lists”. Things I love doing, things I’m exceptional at, things I hate doing, stuff I’m bad at.
• Stop, Start, Continue Retrospective: Ask what you want to start, stop, and continue doing.

Imagine you are writing a press release about all the things you shipped and the impact they are having.

Things you might include in your press release:

• Headline
• One-line Summary: imagine how someone would describe this to a colleague
• Top 3-5 things you shipped
• Where your time went
• Key insights/learnings
• Progress on metrics
• Qualitative impacts. The observable indicators that you’re driving impact
• Overall mood/sentiment
• What you’re really proud of
• What you’re not so proud of
• Stuff you’ve got your eye on. Anything the broader organization did that you wish you could have been a part of.
• A look ahead

The best and worst thing about working at dynamic companies is what the company needs from you is constantly changing, which means your job is always changing.

To help get more clear on how things are changing, re-write your own job description every six months. 

• Describe the overall description of the relationship between the role and the broader company and its goal.
• List responsibilities
• The skills required to do a great job.