I recently read Switch: How to Change Things When Change is Hard, written by Chip and Dan Heath. They are also the authors of the bestseller Made to Stick.

In the book, the Heath brothers say we must do three things for change to occur:

1. Direct the rider
2. Motivate the elephant
3. Shape the path

Directing the rider and motivating the elephant are metaphors for appealing to the intellect and appealing to emotions, respectively.

What strikes me is the wording used to describe what one must do in terms of directing the rider. The authors state on page 17, “What looks like resistance is often a lack of clarity. So provide crystal-clear direction.”  We read on page 72, “Clarity dissolves resistance.”

In the September 2010 issue of Fast Company, the Heath brothers further explore this concept in their article “Tase the Haze.” One of their examples sounds exactly like a line out of the Get Organized! workshop:

Imagine that you have two items on your to-do list. One is “pick up AAA batteries”. The other is “deal with tax issues.” Guess which one is still unchecked four weeks later?

Replace “AAA batteries” and “deal with taxes” with the examples “buy shoestrings” and ‘improve the math curriculum,” and you could be sitting right there listening to me!

In both Get Organized! and Organization Made Easy!, we talk about the elements which go into making an “organized task list,” a list that stands a chance of having the items on it accomplished. The first rule of an organized task list? Make the next step crystal clear.

The fact that the same idea shows up again worded in virtually the same way is simply evidence of its truth. Before we can make progress, we have to define what progress looks like. We must know exactly what is being asked of us. When worded in a crystal-clear manner, tasks become easier to do. Mountains become easier to move. Wasted motion goes away. Stress goes down. Productivity goes up. Take a look at your own to-do list with the filter of clarity in mind. How could you rewrite so that items that have been sitting there suddenly start to get done?

Jennifer Lee wrote an article for the Eye on Education blog. Here is the text of that article:

Crystal Clear Task Lists

No one knows who originally thought up the idea of the to-do list. More than likely, as soon the first  such list grew to more than about five items, the question arose, “How do I know which one to do right now?” Certainly, every one of us can generate a list of our obligations that far exceeds what can be accomplished by the end of the day. Having some way to organize a laundry list of tasks into a doable game plan is the challenge.

Examine your own list. How many of those items really take a number of steps to complete? How many lack all the information necessary to accomplish them? How many of the tasks are simply ambiguous and leave you at a loss to where to begin? When someone looks at a list and sees two items—a difficult one and an easy one—human nature dictates choosing the easy one. Buy shoestrings wins out over solve world hunger every time because we know exactly how to go about buying shoestrings. Solving world hunger, like so many other goals we may have, is large and undefined. We really do not know where to begin.

The first rule of composing an organized task list is to make each task crystal clear. The list below provides an example of a list where clear tasks are intermingled with goals that require multiple steps.

Unclear Task List

Supplies?
Improve math curriculum
Money for music program
Maintain computer
Orders?
Get summer school going

The list below provides a list that will actually stand a chance of being accomplished.

Crystal Clear Task List

Mills: Want to teach summer school?
Carter: Schedule observation
Room 102: Check on heat
Acme 555–8312: Check on status of order
Register for math workshop 555–7646
Run SpyBot
Research sources for music grants
Outline ABC report
Compose blog post in use of ALEX

What makes the tasks in the second crystal clear? They possess the following characteristics:

• Crystal clear tasks include verbs. Verbs are the doing part of speech. Read a crystal clear task and you know exactly what it is you are supposed to do. Clarifying what is to be done on the front end increases the chances that you will know what to do when you see that task on the list later in the week.
• Crystal clear tasks can be accomplished in one sitting and ideally can be accomplished in a few minutes. Overly burdensome tasks tend to sit idle on lists whereas those that are easy to do get done. The trick is to break big jobs into tasks that are small enough that they are accomplished in a short period of time.
• Crystal clear tasks have all needed information at hand. If the task is a phone call, the crystal clear task has the phone number already written down. The agenda for the phone call is already written out.
• Crystal clear tasks can be done now, without something else having to happen first. If something else must happen first, that is the task to appear on the list.

Have you ever had an item that sat in your to-do list for what seems like forever? What did you finally do to get it moving?