Dominate Your Competition (By Correctly Identifying Task Types)
In life and in business, you will come across three major types of tasks. To succeed, it’s critical that you first identify what category of task you are dealing with.
Event-driven tasks: When some triggering event occurs, do something. You can identify this category of task easily: something will appear in front of your face and stay there until you do it. For example, say a customer emails you with a question about their account. Easy! I like to think of this category as the PS/2 port of tasks — they are interrupt-based. Something will interrupt your workflow and say “Hi! I’m a thing that needs to be done!” At my company RL Property Management, we use Process Street for most of these.
Recurring tasks: Every so often, do something. For example, you may need to change your furnace filter quarterly. Handle these tasks with repeating calendar events or simple task management apps that allow you to schedule recurring to-do items. These are the USB port of tasks — polled. You need a system to check in on them at predicable times. I love using the powerful Recurring Tasks feature in Highrise to handle these.
Exception-based tasks: When an action does NOT happen, do something. This is the most insidious and overlooked category of tasks. For example, if a customer does NOT pay an invoice, you will need to escalate the request for payment at some point. Proper handling of these tasks will place you and your company well ahead of the competition. Computer programmers use the term “exception” to describe an error code for an unexpected situation, which is analogous to this problem. When I send an email that requires escalation if I don’t receive a response, I use the “Snooze If No Reply” feature, part of the incredible feature-set of Boomerang for Gmail.
When are you dealing with Tasks At Scale, systems must be created and implemented to handle the volume of tasks. Each category of tasks presents unique problems. These challenges can be overcome, but the first step is to correctly identify what category of task you are dealing with.