SOP beats CYA every time

Remember the last time you were asked by your boss, spouse, friend or coworker to do X, only to have that to do vanish from your brain until the split second you’re confronted? Maybe you maturely admitted your mistake – and looked like an idiot. Or maybe you did some sort of song and dance, chuck and jive CYA routine that fooled no one. Whatever – it was not your shining moment.

That task took a wrong turn going in one ear, got stuck in some part of your brain that doesn’t work unless you are under Extreme Emotional Pressure, and right out the other ear, didn’t it?

There’s a simple – shockingly simple – solution, and Susan Sabo at her latest post on LifeHack.org nailed it: have a Standard Operating Procedure for every routine task.

The concept that makes SOPs most powerful is that you ‘automate’ things that you can so that you have energy and focus for that which you cannot automate – planning, decision making, and communicating.

You already have dozens of SOPs, otherwise you’d be helpless. Don’t think so? How about how you bathe, how you get to work, how get dressed? You learned all those things, created a SOP for each of them and internalized that SOP years ago.

Now, in this increasingly online, globalized, future-shocked world, it’s high time you set out to create SOPs that weren't covered back in grade school. Like how you deal with email. With Voicemail. With faxes. With computer files. With web sites you want to find again. With making sure you don’t forget a task.

Consciously creating a SOP is easy:

1. What Hurts most? What did you last forget? An voicemail, a email, a task – start with what springs to mind.
2. Write down what you are going to do to never do that again. Maybe it’s always having a paper pad by every phone. Or printing each and every email’s first page that is a non-trivial task. Or having a bookmark folder in FireFox that you religiously clear as your pre-Weekly Review. Whatever works foy you, in whatever detail you need. Imagine you are writing up the instructions for a robot you want to program – you are.
3. Rinse, lather and repeat. Keep that written SOP where you need it and follow the instructions until you know it by heart. Then file it – Congratulations! You’ve just converted your next CYA into an SOP.

Comments

[Scott Carpenter]

If I am at my computer and I receive an important request that must be completed with the next 24 hours I email details to myself straight away. This gives the task maximum visibility.

If the task is not of high priority it is immediately entered as a task in Outlook.

If I am away from my desk it is immediately entered as a task on my phone (which then syncs with Outlook).

If I don't have my phone I will write details of the task on a piece of paper and put it in my shirt pocket (not pants pocket - this is risky because the paper can fall out when removing keys/wallet). Then at the next opportunity I record the task in Outlook or on the phone.

I also have got into the habit of reviewing the Outlook tasks in the morning and afternoon so they don't slip off the radar.

Bottom line - I do as much as possible to avoid that moment of horror when you remember too late!