It’s just an Issue

If you’re overwhelmed by “136 issues” piling up on your desk, you’re not alone. As someone told me recently “I feel like my life is on post-its and bits of scrap paper.” Does this strike a chord with you?

Take a deep breath. Tell yourself “it’s just an issue”. Not everything on your list is something you must do immediately. Often, this leads us to some bad behaviors:

1. Ignore it - hoping it will resolve itself
2. Kick it down the road - while telling everyone we’re working on it
3. Solve only the little issues - because, we tell ourselves, “I’m getting a lot done”
4. Pass it on to others - via middle-of-the-night emails and voice messages

The best way to deal with issues is to follow the Issues Solving Track™. It starts with creating an Issues List. Get everything off your desk and out of your head and create a list of ideas, obstacles, barriers and things that you think need to get done.

Once you’ve cleaned up the scraps of paper and you have everything on a list, you’re able to put things in perspective. Your Issues List has created context. As you look at everything as a whole you’re in a better position to prioritize. Take another deep breath. How many of those issues are only symptoms of a root cause?

In the world of EOS, we follow 3 steps to make issues go away forever, IDS (Identify, Discuss and Solve). A solution leads to either a decision (yes or no … not maybe) or a “to do” item. When we deal with 136 issues as 136 “to do” items we skip 5 important steps:

1. Build an Issues List
2. Prioritize the Issues
3. Identify the root cause
4. Discuss it
5. Solve it

The solution may lead to a "to do". If you skip the steps above, you risk creating more work for yourself. Remember, you’re only human. It’s just an issue.