Getting (My) Things Done

When I first started working at Microsoft many years ago (almost 9 years, in fact), many of the folks at my new hire orientation told me that I would be "blasted by an information firehose." They were right, of course, and each year that goes by magnifies this issue even more. What I think they didn't tell me as much was that I would also be blasted by a "to-do firehose." There are so many things for me to read and learn, but also many things for me to do in relation to multiple ongoing projects. Now that I also manage a team of highly skilled, high-performing individuals, I also need to give people ongoing performance feedback and make sure there are opportunities to continue developing their skills and Microsoft careers.

Keeping on top of all of the stuff on my to-do lists (also known in my organization simply as "work items") has been tough at times. I've used several project-management systems, but a system that I've come to rely on over the past year is keeping a simple set of prioritized to-do lists, with one list per "context" (for example, one list of work items per ongoing project, one to-do list per team member for their skills and career development, and so on). I've also extended this to my personal contexts as well (for example, one to-do list for my home improvement projects, one to-do list for my personal goals, and so on).

This system, with acknowledgement to methodologies such as Getting Things Done (GTD), has worked really well for me. I'm curious, what similar systems that you've found both simple to set up and simple to use have worked for you?     

-- Paul

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