Combing

In my Inbox post I described the method of combing the emails. And you've been asking about lists. Of course lists that are made and never re-read and re-combined are completely worthless. This is frankly one of the very commonly observed behaviors: starting the new day with a new page in a copybook. This gives this false good feeling of a new opening. Which is completely, completely wrong if you want to achieve anything (not to mention success!).

I'm seeing people coming to meetings with blank pages. They fill them out with notes and to-do lists and the next meeting they start from scratch. How come?

Carrying forward is one of the most important rules of entrepreneurship. You start the company once. And then you carry forward everything that has not been fully closed. Until the finish line (which may never come).

So working with lists is about combing through them. Sorting our what has been done and what remains. And really the tools do not matter. It is about the perseverance of doing just that. Walking through notes and sent emails and checking if there are things to take care of.

Personally I'm using many tools I consider "lists" (in the meaning defined by Richard Branson). The first and obvious one is the email sent items folder. The fact an email was sent does not mean things would happen. Oh so often emails are lost in transit, lost in overcrowded inboxes, or simply are not carefully read through. You - the sender - bear the responsibility of the task until you receive a confirmation somebody else has taken it over. So keep combing through your sent items, pulling what requires special attention.

I use a paper copybook with color markers too. I often go back through the pages looking for things that might have been forgotten or checking the actual achievements versus the past assumptions.

I also use mind maps. I love collapsible structures that allow drilling down to details and also being able to have a complete overview of the situation at a glance.

I take photos of every filled whiteboard and push it to the shared storage folder for reference.

No single tool. Which is not a problem. Tools are often excuses "It is GMail's fault because it lost my email". Don't look for a holy grail tool for list management. Simply put yourself to systematic work, combing through them. When you really do this on a regular basis, it will be enlightening how effective this method is.