Why We Can't Get Things Done

Humans are smart, creative, and cooperative creatures. But for all of that, we are not that good at getting things done.

Think about how long it takes for you to get started on that project that you have every reason to do. Such as: exploring your next career move, even though you aren't happy with your current job, or even something as simple as writing that report you need done by tomorrow afternoon.

This is why productivity hacks like the Pomodoro Technique are so effective (the technique essentially involves breaking work into intervals, typically 25 minutes in length, followed by a short 5 minute break). The method works so well because it solves three basic problems that humans are inherently bad at:

• Breaking down a grand vision into the next logical step: Instead, we procrastinate long after having figured out the general direction of the "big idea".
• Locking down on an agreed outcome: Instead, our own ingenuity constantly throws up new ideas that distract us from the completion of the next step.
• Completing tasks in a timely manner: Instead, we fill up the time until the next deadline, often taking longer than we actually need to get the job done.

It gets even worse when we work together in teams, or big organizations for that matter. One flawed human plus some more can compound into even greater problems: the overall vision can become inconsistent across the group, and it becomes even harder to agree on the next step to work on. Worse still, some experts believe that human ingenuity might even switch off in groups, as phenomena such as "groupthink" reduce creativity and individual accountability.

It explains a lot about working at a large organization: what feels like a sub-optimal patchwork of processes, hierarchy, and bureaucracy is actually a "best effort" attempt to counter some of our basic human fallibilities in getting stuff done. Sometimes, this can get so frustrating for employees that they would rather work alone, or at least with a much smaller team, leaving to start-up their own businesses.

Sometimes, this can get so frustrating for employees that they would rather work alone, or at least with a much smaller team, leaving to start-up their own businesses.

But there could be a simpler solution, inspired by the insights of the Pomodoro Technique. It's not new either, and you've probably heard of it as the Agile/Scrum methodology.

It scales up what the Pomodoro Technique realised for individuals, to teams, but at the appropriate speed for the organisation:

• Develop incrementally and iteratively: Sweat the details on the next logical step and less on the grand vision, learning as you go along the journey
• Aggressively scope in (and out): Accept that new ideas will come once you get started, but push them on to the next cycle
• Timebox into "sprints": Operate in bite-sized 1-2 week sprints with a clearly defined and achievable deliverable at the end of it

It may be why ANZ Bank announced in May 2017 that it was transforming its organization around Agile teams. It's also how Amazon has managed to stay innovative since inception, or always at "Day 1" as they put it, by releasing a seemingly endless amount of new products and services in a "build-measure-learn" cycle. Companies like Ericsson have successfully used Agile to deploy its products one to two years earlier than it used to.

By understanding these simple insights about human nature, you can improve your own personal efficiency in getting things done and raise the effectiveness of your team for your next big project.

Collin is an MBA student at MIT trying to get things done, and wrote this over the course of three Pomodoro cycles.