How to Use a Learning To-Do List

My coaching client Kerry has a new employee, Harper. Harper is … well … not exactly the brightest candle on the cake. Every few weeks, Harper needs assignments and workplace rules explained. Even if they’ve been explained in the past. Harper looks like a fool, and Kerry looks like someone who is seriously contemplating action too drastic to mention in a public forum. 

But Harper is blissfully clueless. Don’t be Harper! Even if your boss isn’t complaining, that doesn’t mean you’re ahead of the game. Ensure your own rapid learning by using a learning to-do list (i.e. a to-do list that learns). You’ll automate your tasks and get better, all at once.

Intern MG is on loan to intern at Grandma Cuddles’s Daycare Center. Cuddles has a keen eye for making the best possible use of every new intern. She has MG processing incoming customer orders. She’s knows that mistakes sometimes happen. And MG knows if they happen because of him, he’ll get a chance to visit room 101, the discipline room. MG does not want to visit the discipline room.

So he has decided to use a to-do list that learns to get on top of his game as quickly as possible. Otherwise, he might get fired. Or worse.

Take Notes

First, MG has to make sure he really understands Grandma Cuddles’s instructions. Cuddles isn’t always the most coherent.

You’ve probably noticed that when anyone tells you how to finish a task that needs to be completed to satisfy your corporate overlords, it’s easy to zone out, because they’re incoherent. But don’t! Instead, take notes.

Taking notes shows you’re paying attention. If you don’t take notes, they will feel stressed because they won’t know whether you’re getting it or not. Taking notes sends an unequivocal message to the person across the table. It says, “Keep going, I’m listening, and I will get this right.”

Take notes by hand. Physically writing things down has been shown to improve memory. You have actual capability for memory, and using your computer doesn’t activate it. Use paper.

Use Paper, not Computers

Don’t use a laptop. Even perfectly complete notes on a laptop or tablet won’t get remembered as well as handwritten scrawls. Even aside from the memory considerations, when you take notes by laptop, you visibly zone out and nonverbally disconnect from the people around you. It really shows, and people can tell. For some reason, this doesn’t happen with handwriting. You can learn more about why handwriting is so much better in this previous Get-it-Done Guy episode.

Cuddles asked MG to handle an incoming order for a shipment of rare earth metals, including her very own secretly discovered element, Cuddleonium. The customer needs someone to do the mining, and, well, Grandma’s little tykes just love playing in the quarry with their shovels. Major excavations require a lot of detailed planning, especially when there’s radioactivity involved. For example, don’t have it shipped to the warehouse because it’s too hot there and the metal might explode. 

MG got everything on paper to Grandma’s approving nods. It was clear to her that Intern MG is an attentive young man! But notes are only the beginning. 

Make a Checklist

Your notes will rarely be nice and organized. People talk fast and bosses aren’t always what you’d call a “linear thinker.” They ramble. Review the notes and turn them into something useful, a checklist. Make a checklist for all the steps you need to complete the task you’ve been given. Then, start following the checklist.

MG put “Order earth-moving shovels” as item number one. Then he wrote “Acquire aluminum foil to construct homemade hazmat suits.” Finally, he wrote “Do not store ore in warehouse.”

Taking notes shows you’re paying attention.

Now’s the time to start using technology. Type the list into a document that you can change and modify. This will be your to-do list that will do the learning. You’ll be adding to, subtracting from, and changing this file as you proceed.

The next step is to actually do the tasks on the list.

Take Notes for Next Time

You could just trust your checklist and do each task exactly as your recorded it. But most times, you find you need to make changes as you work. 

As you work through the list, take notes on stuff you need clarified next time. Which of your notes were unclear. What additional tasks came up. Record the changes at the end of the file where you’re storing the list. When you finish an item, just type DONE next to the item. Do not remove that item from the file.

Intern MG was reviewing the orders for Cuddleonium. He noticed that the customer had specified a mix of chunk-sizes. Grandma hadn’t mentioned anything about different sized chunks. What’s the right mix of small chunks and big ones? Grandma probably knew for sure, but MG didn’t want to go ask for help again. After all, one annoying question too many and he could find myself securely strapped to a chair in room 101. So he gave the excavation teams instructions to mine a few really big pieces. It should be fine, he thought.

Revise the Checklist as Needed

Once you’ve completed your checklist, you have all the notes recorded about how it needs to change next time. Incorporate those notes into the list. Add the tasks that need to be added. Refine the tasks that were wrong. And delete any tasks that proved superfluous. Then revise your list to produce the next revision, which will be more accurate, and help you even more next time around.

Your to-do list just learned! Yippee!! As the list gets better, so will you.

Intern MG forwarded the order to the Recess Supervision Enforcement department, who took the little kiddies out on their field trip to the quarry. 

But all was not well! Five to seven business days later, the customer called. Sixty giant packages of huge rare radioactive metal had arrived on the customer’s doorstep. It seems that the customer had wanted a mix of sizes after all. 

Intern MG silently noted to add a step to his new checklist “Ask about mix of chunk sizes” for the next time he has to handle an incoming order.

After noting these changes in his checklist, MG filed it away in a safe place for the next time he needed to take a rare metals order. Now, he has a system to never make the same mistakes again! By taking notes, organizing them into a checklist, making notes as he did the tasks, and revising the checklist as he works, Intern MG can do his job better and better. And room 101 will remain securely locked, with him on the outside. 

Try out your own to-do list that learns. Use it to get better and better at what you do. You don’t want to end up like Harper, being that person who everyone knows doesn’t deliver. Be like Intern MG, an over-achieving, hyper-talented, likeable, friendly, … oh, forget it. Just be awesome! And your to-do list that learns will help you get there!

This is Stever Robbins. Follow Get-It-Done Guy on Twitter and Facebook. I run webinars and other programs to help people build extraordinary lives and careers. If you want to know more, visit SteverRobbins.com.

Work Less, Do More, and have a Great Life!

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