“Herding Cats” is an expression used often in Project Management. It refers to a task that is extremely difficult, or impossible, to do because of people, or variables, constantly in flux and uncontrollable. There is a popular EDS commercial on YouTube with modern “cat herders”.
People-Factors
Project Managers often have to deal with things that should be straightforward, but they become unbelievably difficult due to the people-factor.
Here is an example: you need to get someone to sign a piece of paper to get something done. Everything has been approved by those on high and all that is needed is one single signature by a finance dweeb. But he refuses. Fear of making a mistake? An uncontrollable desire to prove that he can control time and space? It could be anything.
It’s like trying to stand cooked spaghetti on end.
Controlling Email
In personal productivity a great example is email. There are hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands… well… there is at least more than one book that will teach you how to get control of your work email. Not those jokes that get forwarded, not the links to great YouTube videos, like the one above, and not pictures of the family. Real work email.
The Four D’s
I use the Delete, Delegate, Defer, or Do empty-email-inbox-process. I keep my inbox empty except for those emails that still need an action. Everything else has been deleted, or at least most of them, delegated to the right person, deferred or moved into a to-do file or to the appropriate project file or it falls into the “do” category.
“Do” means that you either reply to the email or take the action required by the email. This is best if the action required takes only a moment or two, or if it is actually urgent and important.
When you go through your email and do one of these four actions quickly and properly, you will never spend more than one hour in the morning and one hour in the evening. And you will have an empty email box no matter how much work you have.
Cat Herding Emails
How is this like cat herding, I hear you ask. Well, if you are like me, you have more than one urgent and important email that comes in. And it seems as if urgent emails bounce back and forth just after you finish repling to one.
Urgent, urgent, urgent – in an infinite loop.
If you want to avoid this trap, program your email to be sent an hour after you begin. All of them.
Begin working on you email at 9am, send them all at 10am and then log off. When something actually important comes up, let people know that they can call you – but only if it is really important (and don’t be afraid to use your voicemail).
Managing Unstable Environments
“Cat herding” is managing extremely unstable environments through practice and persistence. You have to put it in place and stick with it.
How do you handle your “cat herder” situations? What kind of “cat herder” are you?
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sound’s interesting, but i didn’t get that CONTROLLING EMAIL factor, how it controls my email, do you mean it stops spam to enter into my in-box or only allows particular emails to come that are linked to my business strategies only.
Alex Nash@Dofollow Blogs´s last blog ..This site uses KeywordLuv
It is up to you to control your life, and all too often people let things like email take too much time. If you set up a process that works for you. I use the 4 D’s and kept myself off of email for most of the day so I could do my real job. I had people work for me that could not get off of email because they kept getting emails that were “too important” to miss.
The control part is up to you, as long as you have a system that works, stick with it.
This holds true for other side work too. If you are a writer and you spend your day answering phone calls at all hours of the day, find a way to group them in one chunk, do your real job (writing in this case) for many hours without interruption and then later in the afternoon get back on the phone.
Nice!
When I worked in a large corporate, I only used to read my emails twice a day. Once at lunch time’ish and once just before going home.
The emails I hated were the ones that started “urgent…I need this by 2pm”
Then RING ME if its urgent you idiot!
Even if I saw the email and could respond before 2pm, I used to ignore it. Serves them right, I say!
Andrew
Andrew – GreatManagement Blog´s last blog ..I’ve been Stumble Scammed
One of the problems with email today is that someone can send you an email and assume that you will instantly read it. You do get it in your inbox reight away and people assume that you will act right away. When you are away from your mail, doing your real job, you can’t read email,, but often that is not considered an excuse.
Like you, I would not answer that “I need this by…” type mail unless it landed during the time that I was normally on mail. – Having said that, I used to be on call 24 hours a day. On call, by phone. I would answer a call at 2am and act on it, as that was a process that I put in place.
I like you 4D method…My email is now like a wide jungle. I am trying to find how to clean it up without missing any important information. I think I can adopt your 4D method.
Nania@sharp carousel microwave´s last blog ..The Best Sharp Carousel Microwave
Now I know about Herding Cats after read your post
Keep posting
It’s useful
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