[noir_lord]

The best boss I ever had back when I worked retail used to walk the store every morning, write down all tasks for that day and then prioritise them, he then gave that to me and I just worked the list until finishing time, I asked him once if he minded I didn't get them all finished every day and he replied "Nope, I don't expect you to", it was incredibly unstressful, I always knew what I should be doing, communication overhead was low and the list was a measurable measure of progress over a day.

Last I heard he was senior management in the whole company so well deserved I'd say as a former sub-ordinate.

[bootload]

" I always knew what I should be doing, communication overhead was low and the list was a measurable measure of progress over a day."

It's no accident, and I'm really getting to see why this technique works. It's simple. Given you have a days work, working from a short list is do-able. If the tasks are prioritised things get done.

The bit I've found hard: when things interrupt, the old list is useless and a new one can be made to reflect this. It really is a great hack and hearing stories from people who have worked with this is a real confirmation that it can work.

[beachstartup]

we manage entire projects with a simple milestone list and a constantly updated list of current tasks and who is going to do them (action items, in mba blogspeak).

'make a list and then do it' is way too simple for a lot of people to understand. most people are looking for either shortcuts, or magic solutions like special software.