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The "Walk-Talk-Write" Principle for getting stuff done faster

Zoomers hate this tactic

Author

Bruno Nogueira
May 22, 2023

The art of execution is the art of managing bottlenecks.

And in the case of knowledge work (which I guess applies to everyone reading this newsletter), bottlenecks happen in the context of collaboration.

You want to do more work on your workstream, but you often need to get a simple piece of information back from another person before you can proceed.

Yet, people are busy.

Depending on your role and company, it may take hours, even days to get a message back from them…

… Which results in a pile of half-done tasks and projects on your side.

There's got to be a better way.

Well, our reader Andreas shares a tip that I too have found effective in my career: The "Walk-Talk-Write Principle".

Here it is:

On my first project I would have the habit of writing people emails only to wait hours or days for a response which would delay my work stream. My mentor then told me that by using emails as a last resort, I would increase the speed of my work stream significantly. He suggested that, instead of writing people an email, I walked to their desk, if that was not possible or they were not present, I called them, then wrote them on teams and finally wrote them an email.

Not only did I significantly improve the speed of my work stream, I also built a stronger network by talking to people in person or on the phone, rather than writing emails.

Pro tip: Teams > email! People have the habit of responding faster on Teams messages than email.

What I like the most about it is that it puts MOVEMENT in the system.

Fewer items piling up on your to-do list, and more completed tasks that push your project forward.

Removing these "coordination bottlenecks" is often the difference between finishing a task in a few hours vs. a few days.

And consistently finishing work faster (without really doing more work) is not only more pleasurable but also one of the keys to being seen as an effective problem-solver.