Focus on One Internal Deliverable Allows Me to Work Down My WIP (Day 4)

Focus on One Internal Deliverable Allows Me to Work Down My WIP (Day 4)

I hate the fact that I let my WIP get this high—and I'm glad I'm working it down. (I wrote why I let my WIP get this high on my other blog in the post, What Would It Take for You to Fail to Success?)

My status today:

• Finished one more presentation and need to record it. 3 presentations still on the list.
• Just under 1000 words on the book, and I'm pleased with them.
• No fiction, no columns.
• Maybe half the distributor progress for the other book. What remains requires me to think about the buying/user experience.
• I have finished other writing, such as my other blog, this blog. I'm on my way for my Fiction newsletter.

So it looks like I'm not going to be done with everything this week. That's entirely possible.

But I do want to explain why I feel successful even if I don't finish it “all.”

I focus on one small deliverable at a time to make incremental progress. Each of these small deliverables marks one kind of done.

What Does Done Mean to You?

When I work with teams, we often discuss done. (Worse, we discuss: done, done-done, done-done-done, ad infinitum.)

That's why I started to talk about product minimums with minimum outcomes. Outcomes are the goals, the target.

If I worked as part of a team, other people could consume each of my outcomes. So, while I'm making progress on several pieces of work, I'm not multitasking. I get each piece to the point someone else could consume it. That's why the idea of “how little” instead of “how much” makes so much diference in how I work—and how your team could work.

Most of the time, that someone else is me, but that's okay.

I still focus to achieve my outcomes.

How I Focus

Everyone is different, so I can only speak for me. But here's what I do:

• Turn off all notifications. I turned off email notifications forever ago. But I also turn off Slack notifications (or close the app). My phone is always set to silent. Not silent plus vibrate—no, silent.
• I use short timeboxes to finish one outcome. For writing, I tend to use 20-25 minute timeboxes, such as a Pomodoro. For other work, I might use a timebox as long as an hour. I don't remember the last time I used a timebox longer than an hour and did not break it up.
• If I listen to music, I listen to music with no words.

I also have two large monitors so I can keep “everything” I need for my work visible. (How can you people with just one monitor work? Ugh, my stomach gets queasy every time I think about that.)

I use an ergonomic keyboard and a Magic Mouse. I don't have to worry about my hands, wrists or shoulders.

And yes, my desk and chair is set up so my feet rest on the floor. (I have a short desk. Hahahaha.)

I can slip into “finish-this-one-small-thing” mode very easily.

Valuable Outcomes, Not Outputs

What is a minimum valuable outcome? I use Seb Rose's ideas that a valuable outcome:

• Increases knowledge, or
• Decreases risk, or
• Generates useful feedback.

My interim (and valuable) outcomes always increase my knowledge. Sometimes, I realize I have too many ideas in a presentation or a piece of writing. Because I leave my work clean, I can decide what to do about that in my next pass.

I did say I prepared for the distributor. Because I prepared, I have reduced my risks when I think about the user experience for buying this book.

While I didn't finish everything as in done-and-out-to-customers, I finished to reduce my risks and increase my knowledge for the next steps.

That's why I'm such a big fan of internal deliverables. I've shown you how daily internal deliverables help me. Just imagine what they can do for your team.

Progress Begets Progress

Have you read The Progress Principle: Using Small Wins to Ignite Joy, Engagement, and Creativity at Work by Teresa Amabile and Steven Kramer? (Amazon affiliate link) If so, you know that the more you make progress, the more your brain wants to make more progress.

That's why I reinforce the idea of one-day stories for teams. My outcomes often take much less than a day, but it's the same idea.

Working Down My WIP

These are all my secrets to working down my WIP:

• Clarify what done means, preferably for an interim deliverable, an outcome, so you can learn from that outcome.
• Focus to finish that outcome.
• Make small progress so you want to make more small progress.

That's it. That's all my secret sauce.