In this quick post, I’ll briefly talk about the optimization of follow-ups. Here is the problem we will be solving today: 

- Usually, each meeting ends with an action plan or a follow-up you must do after a certain period with the people that were on that meeting. As meetings and respective action plans pile up, you struggle with remembering all tasks you must do to ensure all projects are moving forward smoothly, staff has tasks properly delegated, all controls are in place and risks managed. Just taking notes and reviewing them, - doesn’t work well enough for you as notes tend to disappear when you need them, plus, - you write them everywhere and then can’t find “that” place. In addition, they might be so crammed that you cannot extract the information you’re specifically looking for. 

And here a PRACTICAL TIP to address this one. 

 

TIP #1: While on the meeting, each follow up or a task you’ll have not to forget to delegate must get its own Appointment placed in your calendar. For example: you’re on the call with one of your direct reports – Susy and she is currently working on a project that has the first major milestone one week from now. You want to make sure exactly one week from now you’re checking in with her to ensure this milestone with respective deliverables is met. For this, - while on the call with her or right after you put a new 15-minute Appointment in your calendar with the following information: 

Date: <precisely 1 week from today> 

Subject line: Check it with Susy: Sales Automation Project Milestone (discussed 1 week ago) 

As a result, you’ll never forget to check-in with Susy and ensure the project milestone is met. 

 

Here is another – a more sophisticated example: you’ve received an email from your colleague informing you on the status of the very important project he is working on. You have some questions on this status report and decided to directly reply to that email. You also want to make sure you follow up with the colleague, say, - two weeks from now on your questions to ensure he didn’t forget to provide his answers. For this, - right after you’ve sent a reply with your questions you do the following: 

1. Create a new Appointment in your calendar - Date: two weeks from now. 

2. Subject line: Follow up: did John reply to my questions on Project X? 

3. Appointment’s body: you copy-paste John’s email as well as your questions you’ve sent as a reply 

This simple method will allow you not just remember to follow up with John, but also, - right before you’ll follow up, - you can read what’s inside of the appointment to get all the contextual information.