Why you need a 'to discuss' list

In his role as Director of Graduate Studies for Georgetown University, bestselling author of Deep Work Cal Newport had to speak with lots of different people. So he created a To Discuss list.

?‘I realised I could save a tonne of email communication through having a To Discuss (list),’ Newport explained to me. Every time Newport had something he needed to ask his department chair or program administrator or anyone else he was working with, he resisted the urge to just shoot off an email in that moment. Instead, he listed the topic for discussion on his list.

?‘While sending an email in the moment would give me a little bit of relief, every one of those is a new unscheduled message that’s out there and a new unscheduled response. That’s then going to potentially lead to a long back and forth chain of unscheduled messages, which I learned doing the research for my book, A World Without Email, is productivity poison.’

Newport ended up creating To Discuss lists for several people with whom he frequently needed to talk through important issues. Then, whenever he was next meeting with them, he was able to plough through the topics for discussion swiftly and resolve them instantly – a much wiser and more efficient use of time. ‘This probably saved me many dozens of unscheduled emails per week by just waiting until I got to those next meetings. So it was a great productivity saver for that particular role.’

Now, you might be reading this and thinking, ‘But it’s so much more convenient to just fire off an email’, especially if the matter is urgent. However, Newport argues that we overestimate what urgent actually means.

‘Often, when people think they need a response now, it’s because they don’t want to keep track of it. “I want a response now because I don’t know if you’re going to answer or not and I’m not organised enough to keep track of whether I have heard back from Cal about this. So I’m going to send you this email and just get a response right away so I can take this off the things I need to worry about.”’

Utilising a To Discuss column will help you keep track of what you need to ask other people, as well as removing the impulse to send emails that feel urgent but in fact create more work and don’t actually get you closer to resolving issues.

I'd love to hear your feedback on the idea of implementing a To Discuss list!

P.S. This post is an extract from my book Time Wise, available for pre-order now from amantha.com :)

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