To Do Doing Done: A Creative Approach to Managing Projects & Effectively Finishing What Matters Most

To Do Doing Done: A Creative Approach to Managing Projects & Effectively Finishing What Matters Most

To Do...Doing...Done!: A Creative Approach to Managing Projects and Effectively Finishing What Matters Most focuses on the skills required to manage any project without getting bogged down in conflicts or sidetracked by unexpected changes or developments. In this book are proven techniques for bringing any project to a successful and satisfying conclusion. The techniques provided in To Do...Doing...Done! are based on Franklin Quest's highly successful Planning for Results seminar, which has boosted the productivity of thousands of employees in corporations across the country, as well as in Europe and Asia. Hyrum W. Smith Chairman of the Board and Founder, Franklin Quest Productivity and inner peace increase when people accomplish what matters most to them. I recommend To Do...Doing...Done! as a reliable road map for choosing and completing the activities and projects that are indeed in harmony with their highest priorities. Linda Griffin Training Specialist, CompuServe Incorporated I've been using and teaching the four-step process described in this book since Lynne taught it to me in 1992. I am still amazed that such a simple process works on every project to which we apply it. The clear explanations and examples used throughout To Do...Doing...Done! bring incredible clarity to the task of managing projects. Kudos to Joyce and Lynne on a great book! G. Lynne Snead is Program Director of Planning for Results with Franklin Quest and has presented the Franklin Planning for Results project and workload-management seminar to thousands of employees in major corporations throughout the United States, as well as in Europe and Asia. She lives in Salt Lake City, Utah. Chapter 1: Creating A Personal Vision COMING ATTRACTIONS: * Identifying values * Governing values * Values balancing What you must dare is to be yourself. Dag Hammarskjold The subject matter of this chapter changed my life and made this book possible. In 1985 I was a marketing director and project manager for a computer engineering company in Provo, Utah. The word that best describes how I was feeling at that time of my life is "overwhelmed," although "out of control" also comes close. I had recently taken on these new positions and really didn't know how to get the job responsibilities under control and properly managed. One day the president of the company announced a new training program offered by a company then called the Franklin Institute. Not wanting to hear from his often outspoken staff, the president didn't tell us what the training was, just when and where to show up. Having seen many training initiatives come and go, when I walked into the conference room and saw a day planner and training guidebook at each seat, I remember thinking, What harebrained idea are we chasing this time? Although I didn't realize it completely at the time, by the end of the day, my life had changed forever. During the session we learned how to use a day planner to get control of our time, to track and manage all those tasks that had previously slipped through the cracks. I also learned how to develop a referencing system that kept all that old-but-still-important information at my fingertips. I remember the excitement and the sense that I might be able to get my new job responsibilities under control by using this tool. But one part of the training day bothered me a lot. The presenter talked about building our productivity on the basis of our own personal values. He led us through an exercise to identify our values, defining them as the principles and qualities we cared most about in our lives. His point was that if our productivity was based on something other than our personal values, then even if we managed our time better and became more productive, we wouldn't be more personally satisfied. Being more productive may not mean being more satisfied. Philosophically that made sense to me, and I was amazed that I had never identified and prioritized my values before. The problem came when I actually had my list of values in front of me. Here were the things that I thought were most important in my life, yet when I compared my list to the life I was living, they didn't seem to have much in common. During that one-day training session, we didn't have enough time to fully develop and clarify our values, so during the next few weeks I finished the exercise. Working a little each day, I drew up a list of nine personal values, defined and clarified what they meant to me, and developed goals that related to each value. Since then I have added values to that list, but those original nine have never changed. They defined the qualities I felt were critical in my life, such as having a warm, healthy relationship with my son (at the time, I was a single mother of a seven-year-old), continuing my growth and development mentally and spiritually, financial security, healthy relationships, health and fitness, and so forth. The hardest part of workin