So much is said about our big priorities. Yet we know that the finest performances in life are often differentiated by the smallest details. And it is often these very same details – the little things – that can trip us up.
Professional athletes recognize that the slightest change in momentum can result in the difference between a celebratory win versus a devastating loss. Michael Phelps credits the tiny detail of keeping his head level to winning one of his gold medals.
Rogers learned a costly lesson when a misplaced comma (of all things) in a multi-page contract ended up costing them more than $2 million (ouch!) in 2002.
No doubt, we all aspire to stay on top of our details. But life moves fast and emails pile up faster than we can say “details matter”. So regardless of how much we aspire to show up early, hit a tight deadline and remember to do something, we can sometimes find ourselves drowning in the details.
5 Ways to Navigate the Details
Staying on top of all the little details requires an entirely different mindset than our big priorities.
1. Start at the top
Whether you are tackling a stack of papers or a pile of emails, start at the top of your list and work your way down sequentially. Other than a quick scan for hot topics, this is not the time to prioritize. Avoid cherry picking.
2. Organize
Being organized helps us to process the details efficiently. One of the most common reasons why people put off the simple things is because it takes too much time to find the necessary information.
3. Touch it Once
Ideally, we only touch an email / a bill / a phone message / etc. one time. The first time we read something is tied to when we act on it. Otherwise, we waste (quite a bit of) time re-reading.
4. Make the time
Lots of people reserve time for their big chunks of work. But very few people reserve time for the associated minutiae. Here is a rough guideline: if you are receiving 100 emails per day, you need two hours to process them.
5. Cut back
Recognize that maybe you have too much on the go. If you still can’t stay on top of your details (despite all of the above), maybe there are some other things at play. Could you delay or delegate some projects? Does your team need to copy you on every email? Can you ask colleagues to bundle questions and save them for a weekly meeting?
Is Perfection Really the Goal?
What am I really recommending here? Do you need to perfectly attend to every last detail? Not a chance! We still need to protect the time for our priorities. And we have to accept the fact that we will stumble here and there. (Great accomplishments rarely arise without a few hiccups.)
I am simply suggesting that the details (just like the big priorities) require their deserved attention. And with a good balance between our big and small tasks, we will all be swimming our way to (our own version of) Olympic glory.
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