“The decision about what to abandon is by far the most important and most neglected. … No organization which purposefully and systematically abandons the unproductive and obsolete ever wants for opportunities.”
Peter Drucker, Age of Discontinuity
I’m writing this on the last day of 2021 and for once I am confident in predicting that next year will be better than the one that is ending. Like most people I have a few routines I follow around this year and one of these relates specifically to this blog.
I often get asked: how do you get ideas for your blog?
The truth is I have too many ideas for this blog, right now I have 18 ideas for blog posts that are part written. That might be as little as a title, or a completely written post I haven’t editted yet – plus there is one entry I wrote and decided it was for me alone. When I have an idea for a post I just add an entry into my blog list, normally that would be a title and few bullet points. Sometimes it is just a title, occasionally I just type the whole thing as a stream.
These entries will not be rolled over for 2022. In fact, I just deleted 7 after writing that last paragaph. The remaining 11 will be folded up and put to one side in the MacJournal software I use for blogging. I have already created a 2022 folder for next year.
It is a bit like buying a daily newspaper, once the day is gone there is rarely any point to going back to read the bits you missed. Tomorrow is a new day with a new newspaper, new priorities and new things to read.
In order the have new ideas one must make space for new ideas, and that means throwing away ideas which have not be able to win the competition for attention to date. This idea is embedded in my thinking when I recommend teams using OKRs throw away their backlog. It is why I like Jeff Bezos’ “Everyday is Day-1” thinking.
Don’t get weighed down by yesterday’s good ideas, if they are really good ideas they will appear again. If not then removing them will make space for better ideas. Plus, by practicing new ideas you will get better at new ideas.
More importantly: throwing away those ideas and work-in-progress forces one to think about what is really important, what really will make difference and move you forward. Dispensing with the day-to-day trivial allows one to think big.
In truth, while I just irrevocably deleted seven potential blog entries the other 11 will not be lost for ever. They will just be hidden. If I am stuck in a few months time I know where they are – but for that matter, I could equally fish in the unused entries from 2020, 2019, 2018… And in complete honesty, there are two early drafts already in the 2022 folder that I’m keen to write.
So while I say, and I advise you to: “Throw away the backlog” I have no objection to someone keeping (some of) those good ideas in a bottom draw as long as a) nobody pretends they might be done one day, b) they do not distract from your focus on the important things.
Finally, if I am to think big for the next year what would I like this blog to carry? – in other words, what might you expect?
Top of the list is to focus on OKRs: I’ve been blown away by the interest since I published “Succeeding with OKRs in Agile” and I know a lot of people are wrestling with OKRs with agile.
I’d also like to focus myself on “small practical bits”. I know I have a tendency to be “philosophical” – in part that is because I believe that our “philosophy” informs our daily actions and decisions, and the pattern of those decisions, far more, and for far longer, than any given list of “10 things you should …” But I also know, readers – and book buyers! – like “small practical bits” so commercially I should do more of those.
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