Hi, this is Garry from Next Actions
In our work and life we make lots of commitments
Theses are commitments to other people as well as commitments to ourselves
But how good are you at keeping those commitments.
Join me now to explore commitments and see how you can use them to boost your growth
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How many commitments have you made today?
How many times have you told someone you’d do something?
How many times have you thought “I’d better do that for myself?”
Now, how many of these are you going to actually keep
Its really easy to make a commitment to someone
You’re having a conversation and say “I’ll do that”
Your in meeting and you say “my team can do that”
We do these more often that we realise
But, how often do you stop and write down that commitment?
Not very often would be my guess
One of the key things to do with any commitment is to write it down
Get it into your trusted task management system
If you’re in a meeting this may be easy – isn’t that what the minutes do for us, capture the commitments we made
But for those quick conversations, the instant messages, them emails, are you collecting those commitments
If we don’t capture our commitments then how are we going to meet them
Are you going to just juggle them in your head?
Be honest, how successful are you at doing that!
Whenever you make a commitment put it into your task management system
And it doesn’t matter if your system is a fancy electronic one, or just a list of items in your notebook
Capture it, process it and do it
What about the commitments you make to yourself?
Are you capturing them anywhere
This could be things like
I’m going to the gym tonight
I’m going to do my top 3 tasks before going home
I’ll call a friend for a catchup
Do you put these into your task management system?
After all they’re just personal things, they’re not work related
It doesn’t matter
Anything you commit to, either to someone else or to yourself, it must go into your task management system
This gives you one place with all of your commitments
A single source of truth for what you need to do
Do you have any commitments that are being kept in your mind at the moment?
Can you share any of them in the comments?
Now also take a minute and put them into your task management system
You’ve got your commitments recorded.
What are you going to do now?
Easy answer you are going to do them.
You are going to work through your task management system and do them one after another.
The not so easy answer, and the one that most matches reality
You’ll start on one, something will come up so you go off and do it
You come back and start again and guess what, something else comes up
After a while you start getting calls and messages asking why you haven’t delivered your commitment
You apologies
You promise to get it done
You truly mean what you are saying
Then something else comes up
This is where you need to prioritise your work
You need to minimise the distractions
You need to start being proactive rather than reactive
There are a number of ways you can do this
The first is to use the Eisenhower matrix
This allows you to categorise your tasks as either
Important and Urgent
Important and Not Urgent
Not Important and Urgent
And Not Important and Not Urgent
The second technique to use is a Daily Review
In this review you are taking a quick look at your tasks
You are not doing the tasks, your just looking at what they are
This allows you to make quick decisions about them.
You are able to set the Importance and Urgency
You are also able to see any commitments that you have made but are not going to be able to do
By identifying that there is going to be a delay allows you to contact the person you made the commitment to
You can apologies and explain that you won’t be able to meet the deadline you agreed
You are then able to negotiate a different deadline, or even scrap the commitment altogether
By getting ahead and contacting the person, rather than waiting for them to chase you allows you to get ahead of any problems
They can see you are being proactive
They can see you haven’t forgotten them
They may still be unhappy, but this will be less than if they had to chase you
Most people will be happy for a deadline to slip
And if they aren’t, well you now know that the task is likely high on the Importance and Urgent scale
But be careful
If you ask for a deadline to be extended then you will likely receive that
If you go back again, then it makes you look incompetent
It makes you look that you have no idea what you are doing
It makes you look like someone who can not be trusted
Do you have any commitments that you are struggling to meet?
If you do then can you put them in the comments below
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To summarise
We make a large number of commitments everyday
The majority of these we try and manage in our heads rather than putting them into a task management system
Stop doing this
Every commitments should be put into you task management system
We also need to make sure we are prioritising our work
This can be done through the use of the Eisenhower Matrix and Daily reviews
If you find a commitment that you are not going to be able to meet then contact the person you have agreed it with
Apologise to them
Ask them for a new deadline
But only do this once.
If you have renegotiated a deadline then it becomes something that you MUST meet
If you don’t then it is going to harm your reputation
Always remember that it is important to meet your commitments
By meeting your commitments
By delivering in a timely and high quality manner, you will increase your reputation
And having a good reputation is one of the keys to success.
If you’re struggling with maintaining your task management system then give me a call
I can help you identify and implement a system that will work for you
I can help you get on top of your commitments
Isn’t it time you got the results you deserve
Please reach out to me on 0415 591672
I am based in Australia so please use the international dialling code +61 if calling from another Country
You can also email me on garry@nextactions.com.au
or visit nextactions.com.au where you will find a link to book a free short introductory call
Do you have any topics you’d like me to cover
If you do please drop a comment below and I’ll add to the list of upcoming videos
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I’ll talk to you again soon
