How to be more meticulous at work?

[iscrisisgood]

Simple question but need real practical advice:

“How to be more meticulous at work?”

When we work in fast pace + are multi-tasked + used to look at big picture/conceptual level, how to maintain great attention to detail?

[mygos]

“How to be more meticulous at work?” when working in fast pace + are multi-tasked + used to look at big picture/conceptual level…”

Almost similar predicament I faced a few years back when shifted from full time highly paid job to own project management venture with rapid success. It was similar but not the same as I had one more issue “how to ensure that the project teams adhere to the multiple overlapping schedules and meet the tight deadlines” ( of course without continually and repeated reference to the scheduling tools and the PC ). After analysing all the aspects my conclusion was that the maximum problems arose root cause of the problems were:

1. Accepting or limiting the volume and magnitude of tasks matching capacity (resources and human) and competency of the team (which decides the meticulousness and speed of delivery) as well as matching the commitment made vis-a-vis our limitations to meet the benchmarks set by ourselves for quality and building reputation.
2. During working on the project to make certain there is ‘minimal’ lag or deferment (despite best efforts and best PM software and various charts with CPM, PERT etc, it could be never zero so the aim was to minimise it) by me as the project manager or any other team member;
3. At the completion of any task ensuring the quality of output (end product that is meant for the client) as per expectations and commitment;

The root cause of the problems were:

1. Taking up ‘too many’ tasks without realistic evaluation of time and resources to meet the desired standards and schedule and/or over-committing ‘too much’ in terms of delivery;
2. Relying a good deal on technology and PC based tools reducing the human role and responsibility in ensuring timeliness and quality af output;
3. Not upto standard quality check of the finished product or completed task. Lack of fool-proof evaluation of the intrinsic result (specially in training programs) being delivered to the client.

Some of effective (but not limited to) solutions at personal level that emerged out of brainstorming and deeper self-analysis and sincerely followed by me with positive results were:

a. Keep a diary with critical points to be taken note / followed up by me during and at the end of each task/ work noted as sort of ‘aide memoir’ and when looking at/ checking any specific task just refer to it quickly beforehand. Despite being highly IT/ PC dependant person had to do it and it helped max (there was no mobile /tab and apps available at that time so hand written bullet points in a diary was the sole tool, now using a tab & Smartphone to do it though no longer taking up projects for earning or commercial gain). In fact I would tick each point only after fully satisfied that it has been met/ completed.;

b. Among those points were : (i) a single word for each ‘what I must check during and at the end of the task’ (ii) who needs to be told /checked what and when for each task and finally, (iii) who either from my team or client’s representative needs to be spoken to, when and on what. Used red, green and blue ink to denote importance;

c. Reducing the tension by minimising thoughts on (often inventing fear of) ‘what may go wrong’ as I strongly felt undue tension or stress was affecting my personal level of exactitude.

d. Going through the finished output (mostly a report or physical object) at least twice to ensure it has met all the benchmarks and quality standards set by ourselves and committed to the client, then only consider the task completed for handing over /issue.

e. Learning to say NO to tasks that I sincerely thought will need compromising with my high standards of output and may affect my reputation adversely (it was the most difficult part due to many reasons including potential clients’ insistence on taking up the assignment!).

f. Finally, at the end of each working day, just sort of recapitulate what went well and what didn’t, and what needs to be done next day to mitigate any shortcoming that was noticed (and add to the points in diary on that task).

All these sound pretty obvious now but at that point of time I was quite baffled (and inexperienced) by similar concerns as yours. Mainly because after starting the venture the response and demand was so high that within a short time I had to higher services of workers and experts from various fields and many of them (especially those on assignment basis) were not as concerned about meticulousness and high quality in finished tasks as was expected. Also due to heavy work-load and multi-tasking maintaining precision and thoroughness was becoming an stressful issue for me. Hope this recollection of practiced method by me will help you too.

[geo]

Need to do a cost-benefit on whether you should even be meticulous in many situations. I see a lot of people waste time on things that are completely irrelevant to the end result. They are generally accountants. Look at your target end result and ask yourself, " is this important to getting there?" If so, then do it, whether that’s take another review of some numbers or whatever. If not, then who cares. Just be prepared to defend it.

[krazykanuck]

@geo

Need to do a cost-benefit on whether you should even be meticulous in many situations. I see a lot of people waste time on things that are completely irrelevant to the end result. They are generally accountants.

LMAO. So true. When I was in big 4 I was instructed to do so much stuff that didn’t matter and had to spend time on that vs. more important things. Even most of the important things were meaningless in the end.

[geo]

^ In my experience, 95% of audit work is meaningless, and the 5% that’s important is not really in the accountant’s domain, nor is it ever done well. But that 95% is done real good, very meticulous.

[former_trader]

@mygos

“How to be more meticulous at work?” when working in fast pace + are multi-tasked + used to look at big picture/conceptual level…”

Almost similar predicament I faced a few years back when shifted from full time highly paid job to own project management venture with rapid success. It was similar but not the same as I had one more issue “how to ensure that the project teams adhere to the multiple overlapping schedules and meet the tight deadlines” ( of course without continually and repeated reference to the scheduling tools and the PC ). After analysing all the aspects my conclusion was that the maximum problems arose root cause of the problems were:

1. Accepting or limiting the volume and magnitude of tasks matching capacity (resources and human) and competency of the team (which decides the meticulousness and speed of delivery) as well as matching the commitment made vis-a-vis our limitations to meet the benchmarks set by ourselves for quality and building reputation.
2. During working on the project to make certain there is ‘minimal’ lag or deferment (despite best efforts and best PM software and various charts with CPM, PERT etc, it could be never zero so the aim was to minimise it) by me as the project manager or any other team member;
3. At the completion of any task ensuring the quality of output (end product that is meant for the client) as per expectations and commitment;

The root cause of the problems were:

1. Taking up ‘too many’ tasks without realistic evaluation of time and resources to meet the desired standards and schedule and/or over-committing ‘too much’ in terms of delivery;
2. Relying a good deal on technology and PC based tools reducing the human role and responsibility in ensuring timeliness and quality af output;
3. Not upto standard quality check of the finished product or completed task. Lack of fool-proof evaluation of the intrinsic result (specially in training programs) being delivered to the client.

Some of effective (but not limited to) solutions at personal level that emerged out of brainstorming and deeper self-analysis and sincerely followed by me with positive results were:

a. Keep a diary with critical points to be taken note / followed up by me during and at the end of each task/ work noted as sort of ‘aide memoir’ and when looking at/ checking any specific task just refer to it quickly beforehand. Despite being highly IT/ PC dependant person had to do it and it helped max (there was no mobile /tab and apps available at that time so hand written bullet points in a diary was the sole tool, now using a tab & Smartphone to do it though no longer taking up projects for earning or commercial gain). In fact I would tick each point only after fully satisfied that it has been met/ completed.;

b. Among those points were : (i) a single word for each ‘what I must check during and at the end of the task’ (ii) who needs to be told /checked what and when for each task and finally, (iii) who either from my team or client’s representative needs to be spoken to, when and on what. Used red, green and blue ink to denote importance;

c. Reducing the tension by minimising thoughts on (often inventing fear of) ‘what may go wrong’ as I strongly felt undue tension or stress was affecting my personal level of exactitude.

d. Going through the finished output (mostly a report or physical object) at least twice to ensure it has met all the benchmarks and quality standards set by ourselves and committed to the client, then only consider the task completed for handing over /issue.

e. Learning to say NO to tasks that I sincerely thought will need compromising with my high standards of output and may affect my reputation adversely (it was the most difficult part due to many reasons including potential clients’ insistence on taking up the assignment!).

f. Finally, at the end of each working day, just sort of recapitulate what went well and what didn’t, and what needs to be done next day to mitigate any shortcoming that was noticed (and add to the points in diary on that task).

All these sound pretty obvious now but at that point of time I was quite baffled (and inexperienced) by similar concerns as yours. Mainly because after starting the venture the response and demand was so high that within a short time I had to higher services of workers and experts from various fields and many of them (especially those on assignment basis) were not as concerned about meticulousness and high quality in finished tasks as was expected. Also due to heavy work-load and multi-tasking maintaining precision and thoroughness was becoming an stressful issue for me. Hope this recollection of practiced method by me will help you too.

This is hardcore.

[dspapo]

@geo

Need to do a cost-benefit on whether you should even be meticulous in many situations. I see a lot of people waste time on things that are completely irrelevant to the end result. They are generally accountants. Look at your target end result and ask yourself, " is this important to getting there?" If so, then do it, whether that’s take another review of some numbers or whatever. If not, then who cares. Just be prepared to defend it.

Formatting powerpoint slides falls into this category. You don’t need to do much work to get slides clean enough to not be distracting to your audience. Most work beyond that is wasted tinkering.

[lukeacker]

I get where you’re coming from.

I’m an accountant as well. But meticulous attention to detail for me is like pounding a circle through a square hole. It’s not natural.

Heres my $.02

1- Build your models with care, and clearly label input cells, and output cells. Never, never (ever) hardcode. Build your models so that an idiot could walk in an run it. If you can’t simplify it, you don’t understand it.

2- Don’t f$ck around when transfering data. Keep data clean, be extremely careful when lifting data from a source to a power point or something else.

3- Print. Before you submit, print your documents and check em. Then walk away and do something else for 30 minutes, and check them again.

[geo]

#3 in particular is good basic advice.

[numi]

@lukeacker

3- Print. Before you submit, print your documents and check em. Then walk away and do something else for 30 minutes, and check them again.

Totally agree with this. When I started my career on the sell-side, it was the only way to make sure that I had all my numbers right and all my reports devoid of typos. That, and proofreading aloud.

It may seem onerous at first but it might become second nature over time.

[iscrisisgood]

Thanks all for great advices, especially mygos. Actually I have practiced all, except point d - Going through the finished output at least twice to ensure it has met all the benchmarks and quality standards. Main reason is often due to lack of time left before time’s up for hand-over. Need to practice better discipline in managing time next time thou.

Btw, just off-topic a bit:

@Mygos: you mentioned that you are no longer taking up projects for earning or commercial gain. That’s interesting. Mind sharing with us here why so? Did you win some multi-million lottery?

[stratman]

@iscrisisgood

Thanks all for great advices, especially mygos. Actually I have practiced all, except point d - Going through the finished output at least twice to ensure it has met all the benchmarks and quality standards. Main reason is often due to lack of time left before time’s up for hand-over. Need to practice better discipline in managing time next time thou.

Every manager I’ve had would rather have a revised version 20 minutes late than have to send it back with more markups. The walking away and reviewing it a second time is critical. When you’re staring at numbers all day long, its difficult to catch mistakes as they all seem to blend together. Go get a coffee and flirt with your assistant, then revisit.

[itera]

tell yiurself that you’ll get the hacksaw if you mess up

[Viceroy]

IMO Prioritise. Get one thing done and then move on to the other thing.

Sometimes I have to shut down my phone, but at least I get something out of the way.

[Viceroy]

@krazykanuck

@geo

Need to do a cost-benefit on whether you should even be meticulous in many situations. I see a lot of people waste time on things that are completely irrelevant to the end result. They are generally accountants.

LMAO. So true. When I was in big 4 I was instructed to do so much stuff that didn’t matter and had to spend time on that vs. more important things. Even most of the important things were meaningless in the end.

Lol yeah fuck Big4’s.

In my experience I can’t imagine an environment where people have a lesser understanding of the big picture. At analyst & associate levels at least.

Also in my experience they don’t value when people waste time trying to understand the big picture. What they need is good little bean counters who count bean perfectly, and that they can replace very quickly when they get tired of counting beans or when they start asking questions. Their business model is built on that.

In my former Big4 department, of all the analyst/associate class, I think that 2 people out of 20 stayed there as managers 6 years later. All the rest left/quit.