Back in the 20th Century, I learned a technique on a time management course. 'Each time you handle a piece of paper, place a small red dot in the top right hand corner with a Biro. The accumulation of dots will show you how many times you handle the document.' Multiple red dots would indicate the symptom to diagnose the underlying problem (procrastination, poor filing habits, the need to escalate the issue, and so on).
In the 21st Century, this technique is less applicable as the physical object - your screen - is generally the same for all of the information that you handle.
Back in the 20th Century the cost of creating a paper document was high in terms of cost, time and effort. In some organisations, sending a letter meant handwriting or dictating a draft, and passing it to the typing pool. The draft would be mailed or, if it contained errors, corrected. In the 21st Century the cost of creating a virtual object containing information is much smaller. By comparison, minuscule. The result: a greater number of bits of paper (or the virtual equivalents) arriving on our desk(tops).
If we could 'red dot' the information, the accumulation of dots would reveal a symptom: we spend a large amount of our time repeating information - or aspects of it - to different formats. The agenda, the phone calls, the e-mails, the minutes, the tasks, the project plan, follow-ups, reminders and reports - each one creates another file. What if all of these could all be held in the same document? Sure, it could not be done in a paper document, but with a computer...why not?
For all the advances we have seen in the 'information age', many knowledge workers are stuck in an outdated paper culture. The agenda, the phone calls, the e-mails, the minutes, the tasks, the project plan, follow-ups, reminders and reports are all separate because, in a paper culture, they have to be. For many people, coping with the large number of documents is what their work has become, rather than work governed by their desires, objectives or goals.
Back in the 20th Century the cost of creating a paper document was high in terms of cost, time and effort. In some organisations, sending a letter meant handwriting or dictating a draft, and passing it to the typing pool. The draft would be mailed or, if it contained errors, corrected. In the 21st Century the cost of creating a virtual object containing information is much smaller. By comparison, minuscule. The result: a greater number of bits of paper (or the virtual equivalents) arriving on our desk(tops).
If we could 'red dot' the information, the accumulation of dots would reveal a symptom: we spend a large amount of our time repeating information - or aspects of it - to different formats. The agenda, the phone calls, the e-mails, the minutes, the tasks, the project plan, follow-ups, reminders and reports - each one creates another file. What if all of these could all be held in the same document? Sure, it could not be done in a paper document, but with a computer...why not?
For all the advances we have seen in the 'information age', many knowledge workers are stuck in an outdated paper culture. The agenda, the phone calls, the e-mails, the minutes, the tasks, the project plan, follow-ups, reminders and reports are all separate because, in a paper culture, they have to be. For many people, coping with the large number of documents is what their work has become, rather than work governed by their desires, objectives or goals.
Sadly, without the 'red dot' to reveal the symptoms, it is hard to see what a waste of time this is.