EPISODE 052 - Organisation: How to work with SSOS?

Michael Seidl: Welcome to a new episode of the Get Shit Done in IT podcast. My name is Michael Seidl and today we have the final episode of our Single Source of Shit series. As mentioned in the last episode, I had some more information I want to talk with you. So we decided to add a fourth chapter. So today we talk about how to work with single source of shit and how to integrate it into your daily life. So we know all the tools, we know how to implement, we know all the hopefully advantages and why it should be a good idea to have single source of shit. And today we talk about how to work in the daily business. Last episode we learned how to start with single source of shit. So how to bring all together in one tool in one list. And now we talk about how to keep that going. first of all, of course, surprise. When you start with it, there will be new to do's, new tasks, new stuff you need to enter into your system. So as we have. mail inbox, I have a to-do inbox, so where I just can write some ideas, some stuff, some, I don't know, somebody calls me, somebody texts me, somebody sends me an email and I want to add a to-do to my list. So that's a classical inbox, not for mail, so for all your to-dos. For me, for example, I still have some physical notebooks, some physical sticky notes, what I use sometimes during the day because it's a little bit faster instead of open a tool or switching windows and so on. So I write down on paper. But at the end of the day, all those paper written to-dos, tasks, notes are at least stored in the to-do inbox.

Michael Seidl: So that's the first touch into the single source of shit. Bring the to-dos into your to-do inbox. And then at the end of the day, or at least at the end of the week, the complete inbox will be emptied, cleared. So not only my mailbox, my mail inbox, not only my chat inbox, at the end, my to-do inbox needs to be cleared. So everything what I have written in there since the last several days, one week, needs to be cleared. And cleared means go through that list. If you can solve it, if you can mark it as done in just maybe one, two, three minutes, depends a little bit on how much time you have, then do it and mark it as done, remove it from your list. The other stuff is a bit similar to the zero inbox mechanism, then you have to decide if it's something you should do it or is it something you can delegate it? Is it maybe something just to keep in mind for later? like a... a backlog, for example, and then you have different status on at your to-dos. So first you have to classify it. So is it a private or business stuff, other classification? So it depends on your system, how many different classifications you have. So first of all, you have to classify. And then what I do is to set the priority, prioritization. So I have a list of one to five. That means five is my typical backlog. So I don't want to do it now because it's not so important, but I had an idea and it might be good or I heard something I might check later or maybe have some, some ideas where we can go with the kids on a vacation. So this is on my private list. I have a vacation list and there's just like an idea. Okay. Nothing.

Michael Seidl: do at the moment just an idea so that's my priority five list and through that list I go each three to four five months it depends a little bit and I check do I still need it maybe it's already done maybe we did it or now we need to plan it so that depends a little backlog okay not so important you should not go through at least daily then it depends the next one is Should I do it? Do I have to wait for something? And how high on priority is it? So if I have to wait for something, so for example, I need to wait for a delivery or I need to wait for an answer for a specific topic until I can go to the next step. So I mark this with the status of wait. I have a description on who I wait for and what should be the result or the return or the what does the What action should I receive that the wait is over, for example? So for example, I have a gardening project, I wait for the delivery, so I have a task, delivery stuff, status wait, and wait for the delivery. And most of the time, if you wait for something, you should have an estimated time when the wait is over. To say it easy, when I wait for a delivery, I should know when the delivery is happening. So the delivery is planned for this Friday. So I have a wait task this Friday for this topic. And then the end of the day, this should be hopefully done. Otherwise, I will call them and say, hey, what's up? Okay. So that's the idea. But the wait is just a list and they go through on that day, the wait should be over. And the next one is I should do something. Okay. So then it depends on the priority. Maybe it's just a part of a of a project later on, then it will be related to the project and this priority two or three and is depending on some previous stuff. if I immediately have to plan the to do, I have to estimate the time it takes. So for example, four hours. Then I set the status in not started.

Michael Seidl: because I'm not doing it right now. And I have some automation integration I've done by myself, but usually I would go to my calendar, see for the next three, four hour slot, and then I make a calendar, an appointment and relate it to my to-do. But I did some automation, I have a status to plan it in my calendar. And then an Asia automation run book, go through my calendar and see, and is looking for the next three time slot of, for example, four hours. this creating an appointment for me and related back to the task. I have some enhancements here. For example, I have a to do what should be done in four weeks and it takes four hours. I have two different planning types, as soon as possible and as late as possible. So for example, as soon as possible, we get the first four-hour free slot and as late as possible, it will get the latest possible slot. So for example, if you should do something in four weeks, you plan it and it's maybe not that hard timeline, you do it more at the end of the timeline. So if it gets rescheduled, it's not so bad. If you have something that is really that timeline in four weeks, then you might do it a little bit before. So as soon as possible to have. If some circumstances happening so you can reschedule and you're still in time. Okay. So that's, that was the idea behind that. So, that's mainly the, the magic to say, so you get a to do, you, go through your inbox. you plan, you decide what to do. You make it a market as weight. You may, market as to do you plan it in calendar and you do it. course. So. We talked about four episodes about how to implement SSOS and what it is and everything. At the end, you have to do it, of course. Okay. So that's, that, is nothing what is changing with that system. It just makes it easier to plan everything, but you still have to do this stuff. Okay. And the third thing, what I implemented in some kind of way, might be some more

Michael Seidl: strict, harder ways or more detailed ways to do this, but this was fine for me. Usually every one to two months I do a conference, a speech at the conference, technical sessions mostly. And most of the time, because also it's very small, I have to fly to a different location and have specific topics to do during that time. So traveling to the airport, waiting at the airport, sitting in the plane. sitting at the customs, whatever. Usually you don't have internet access during flights. Of course, on long haul flights, have internet access, technically, from a marketing perspective, but most of the time you can't really use it. Not for business work or doing any remote stuff or maybe browsing. So it's very, very bad. So usually... Travel time or flight time is a time for me without internet access. And for those things I have specific to-dos. So I keep those to-dos for that time where I don't need internet access, where maybe I don't need... Yeah, I have always iPad or iPhone or any stuff with me, but where I don't need to read anything on the internet and when I need to prepare it for that time. Okay. So I have to-dos. classified or categorized in specific locations where I am often. So most of the time I sit on my home office. Second most time I sit at customers. Sometimes I sit on a shared office space to talk with colleagues. And but every time on this place I have my notebook, have internet, have every IT stuff I need. But on the travel time I mostly don't have internet access. And on travel time, you mostly get very often interrupted because you travel to the airport, wait. Going to the plane, wait. Outside of the plane, wait. Going to the taxi, wait. Going to the hotel, wait. So you have not that huge slots where you can concentrate. And for this specific time slot, I have specific tasks, what I plan on that days and during that time.

Michael Seidl: And for this, I have a special category. And this is something what depends on you. I have a, I know a lot of people have long driving time. they drive to the apartment, drive home, drive to work, spend hours and hours per week or days in the car. So specifically for that time, you can plan, maybe you want all your phone calls or you do some brainstorming with JetGPT for example. So that's, it depends on your situation. So you don't have to categorize each task. I need a notebook, need a mouse, I need this. Of course there are people doing it, but for me it would be too much. Okay. So for me, it's just office or not office or internet or not internet. Okay. For other why others could be sitting in the car, not sitting in the car. So categorize your to-dos on the locations on the prerequisites you need. them to do. So if you have a task with mandatory internet, then it will be definitely nothing, not a good to do during a flight or maybe a drive in the car if you need to type anything on your notebook or something. Okay. That's the idea. So you classify your to-dos depending on your work environment, on your different work environments. Okay. And that's it. And then you start from scratch, from the beginning. So everything that comes into your mind on your desk, your email, on your messages into your to-do inbox. Go through at least clean it up, plan it, wait, set a state, do it and from from beginning. that's so we already at 1350 minutes already. So still a little longer episode than usual. But now the series, the episodes are done for this topic. As at least my feeling is that I told everything what I know, what I try to know and try to accomplish by myself. If there are any questions, you can contact me on LinkedIn and then we can have an additional episode about your questions. If I forgot anything, if something is unclear, let me know. Then I will do an extra session. But right now we have...

Michael Seidl: One extended episode, so we have four episodes in this series, in this chapter. So that's it for Single Source of Shit. Next episode, different topic, but everything about getting shit done in IT. thanks for listening. Enjoy your week. Stay productive. And bye-bye.