Prioritizing With the EDGE

by Kristi Willis

This morning I booted up my computer in the San Jose airport with the intent of shooting off some e-mails before I got on the plane. I logged in and an error message popped up on my screen. My Windows profile was corrupted and it couldn’t log me in using my profile settings.

Oh boy.

I quickly checked to make sure all of my files were still on the hard drive. Phew – I didn’t lose any data. But when I opened Outlook it took me to the install screen. Oh boy.

I called IT to let them know that we would have to doctor my PC when I got home before my trip to Detroit next week. Then, I opened Outlook Web Access (OWA) to send a few e-mails while I was still in the airport. But what was I going to do on the plane?

I had planned to respond to e-mails that came in yesterday while I was in class and do some work that I no longer had access to. Was I dead in the water or could I still make productive use of my three hour flight? Temptation was whispering in my ear that I could just watch a movie. While I’d love that, I don’t want to have to work extra hours next week to play catch up.

I took a deep breath and regrouped. I reminded myself of the TEST model for prioritizing that we teach in class. What will I have the Time and Energy to do and be in the right Situation to handle the Top level thing?

I looked at my Task list in OWA (which is ugly since it won’t categorize) and found the things that were due today. I realized that several of these weren’t dependent on Outlook but could be done with Word or Excel. I could still work on those. And a few items are paper-based and are in my Pendaflex. I could do those too.

As I looked through the list, I realized I had a number of things I could still work on during my flight. They might not be the most “urgent” things, but I could at least get them out of the way so that on Tuesday I could focus on the “urgent” items.

This experience reminded me that we become so dependent on our e-mail tool that when it’s not working we feel dead in the water. I still had access to my Task list through OWA or on my PDA which I referred to during the flight to keep myself focused. I don’t need Outlook to get things done, and in some ways not having it today made me more productive.

Now, back to those Actions in my Pendaflex…