From the course: Time Management Tips

Follow up on delegated items

From the course: Time Management Tips

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Follow up on delegated items

- One common issue in the workplace is when a co-worker or a team member delegates a task to someone else and they fail to follow up with that person. Because they failed to follow up with that person, that person fails to complete the task. This is a common issue that is fairly easy to remedy. All we need to do is be more consistent with creating followups. Here are some tips to make that happen. Number one is to establish some reminder tool for yourself. For instance, you can have a second calendar that is only used to pop up to remind you of when someone else should get something to you. Or if you already have a task reminder tool that you're using effectively, you can use that as well. The idea though is that we want to get the pressure away from your mind to remember whether or not people are doing things. Use some sort of digital tool to do that for you. Second, whenever you have any doubt that someone is going to complete their assignment, schedule a reminder for yourself. Yes, occasionally there are things that happen over and over, and you just know the other person's going to do it. You don't need to create reminders for those. I'm talking about any time there's just a small sliver of doubt in your mind that they're going to complete it. Any time that that's there, you must create a reminder for yourself. Number three is that in most situations, you want to schedule these reminders for yourself to occur the day after the assignment was due. In other words, if someone told you that they were going to get an assignment to you on Wednesday, don't create the reminder for Wednesday. Create it for Thursday morning. This gives them a little breathing room and gives you the opportunity to follow up with them in a way that is helpful rather than them feeling like you're nagging them too early. Number four is a simple checkup is all you need to do. When the reminder pops up, if they didn't get the assignment to you, all you need to do is send them an email or drop them a line and say, hey I just wanted to follow up on that assignment. Did you get it done? A simple reminder is often all it takes, and either they'll get it to you or they'll remember that they should have and they'll give you some reason why it didn't happen. Which leads to tip five, which is if they didn't complete it, focus on the obstacles in the way of completion. In other words, ask them a question like, what got in the way or what obstacles did you experience? This puts the emphasis in a helpful place of finding ways to prevent this from happening in the future, rather than trying to assign blame to them. As you stay consistent with following up with people, it will shift their expectations over time. They will realize that you're always going to follow up with them, and when you always follow up, it has a dramatic effect on the results.

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