Managing Management - Batched Operational Work

20 Feb 2020

To effectively manage recurring operational work like sending weekly update and roadmap updates it’s good to batch it all together and set it up as a recurring event on your calendar. Here’s what my bright and early Monday morning batch of work looks like:

This does two things:

1. It blocks off time for you to actually do these things. Don’t underestimate the importance of this as this work takes time so allocating and defending time for it is valuable.
2. It gives you a place to track and update all the work you have to do. When you add or remove items, Google Calendar can update future entries. Once you get your list locked down, it’s easy to deliver every week on these things.

Alternatively, Justin Mancinelli (@piannaf) reached out to describe how he accomplishes this with a different system. Justin leverages Trello Card Repeater to automatically add items at recurring intervals (daily, weekly, monthly, or annually) to his personal Kanban in Trello. Thanks for sharing, Justin!

With a setup like these you can take care of work consistently and realiably. Got an interesting system for managing operational work? Let me know on Twitter!

Managing Management is a series on systems that are shareable and serve as actionable templates for addressing the deluge of things managers encounter everyday. Enjoyed this post and want to see more? Check out more at Managing Management.