I need a better way of keeping track of things I'm waiting on

March 25, 2019 7:25 PM

Four times in the past three months (two of which were today) I've screwed up at work because I was waiting to do a thing until I get a necessary email, but the email didn't arrive, I didn't notice, and I didn't do the thing. What workflows, processes, or technology do you use to insure this doesn't happen?

In some cases, fixing the issue has cost several thousand dollars, and I'm getting very embarrassed.

What I currently do is snoozing emails as a way to remind myself to look into them again later. Like, if I send an email and know I can't do anything else until I get a reply, I'll snooze the email chain for a week, and hope that reminds me to follow it up then.

This doesn't seem to work 100%. Some tasks, like the invoice example below, don't begin with an email, so there's nothing to snooze. Also, I use snoozing for other purposes, e.g. if I see an email on my phone that I can't deal with until I'm back at my computer, or if there's emails about interesting but non-urgent things, or just generally tasks I need to do at some later point. So there's always lots of freshly unsnoozed emails in the inbox and sometimes I don't know what I snoozed an email for, and I think perhaps I archive it without doing the follow-up task.

I have also tried adding "follow up with so-and-so" as a task in my to-do list. But my to-do list is already long and scary and if I add all the emails and items I should be following up, it gets really overwhelming and I don't want to look at it at all.

So if you have a snoozed email or to-do-list based solution to this problem, please explain the workflow in detail, because clearly my default approaches aren't working. Or do you have another system to avoid this sort of thing?

Assume that on any given day there are at least 3-5 new things like this that I need to keep track of / watch out for / follow up on, and that the average amount of time I'd need to wait before following up is between 10 days to a month, but sometimes it's more like 2-3 months.

SOME EXAMPLES (YOU CAN SKIP THESE)

For example, I was expecting about 10 invoices relating to an event. Nine of them arrived fine and were paid, but the 10th had a subject line that wasn't about the invoice, and the body of the email was addressed to the wrong person, so it's understandable I didn't realise the attachment was the invoice I needed. But then I never noticed that only nine of the ten invoices had been processed, so I didn't prod the vendor, and by the time we realised the problem, the budget out of which it would have been paid no longer existed (my organisation reallocates unspent budgets at the end of each calendar year).

Another example is that apparently I foresaw a potential budget issue back in October, and emailed Finance a question about it. A "no" answer would have meant I needed to take no action. A "yes" answer would have meant I needed to reduce an employee's hours. I never got a response at all and apparently my brain filed that as "solved". So I never did anything about this at all until today someone pointed out that we'd overspent and that employee should have had reduced hours back in January.

I think some of it is just that I'm not used to dealing with this kind of financial admin - I'm an academic, and it's only the last year or so I've had multiple budgets to juggle and really complicated admin. And 95% of the time, I think I'm doing okay. It's just the 5% of things that slip through. In some organisations, I think Finance and similar admin units would be on top of things enough to make up for the academics' lapses in this area, but ours is not. Like, it is normal to have to send two or three follow up emails to our admin, finance, or HR departments before getting a reply. But I can't change that so I need to change my own processes.

And similar things happen with non-admin stuff. E.g. I emailed revisions of a paper to a co-author for his approval in September last year. I said, "if you are good with these, I'll submit the revised paper". He never replied, and so I never submitted it. Just heard from the editor today that they were still waiting for my revisions.

posted by lollusc to Technology (19 answers total)

Minor fix -- recognize the cases in which you have enough clout to write something like `Unless you have revisions, I will do $FINALACTION on $DATE.' (And then set yourself a reminder to do it!) Or `We are assuming $BESTGUESS and will proceed accordingly unless you inform us otherwise.'

Sometimes these fix the problem, sometimes they just spread the blame around, but that leaves some more energy to concentrate on the things where you can't assume but haven't been told.
posted by clew at 7:37 PM on March 25, 2019 [7 favorites]

At the moment - although it hasn't been stress-tested yet - I've been adding things to a 'waiting for response' list when I send it out. In my case, it takes the form of 1) one of the custom stars in gmail and 2) an entry on my to-do list, depending on how quickly I need to follow up.

So far, it's working well - I can 1) easily review everything that's still in progress, but waiting for someone to respond and 2) move those things to my general to-do list as I have time or as they intersect with the other things I'm working on.

I'm also doing what clew mentions above, as a general practice.
posted by sagc at 7:41 PM on March 25, 2019

It sounds like you actively manage a todo list and your comment history suggests you might be comfortable at a Unix command line, so maybe it's worth mentioning that Taskwarrior supports 'wait' dates that will hide a todo item until a particular date. It also supports prioritization, grouping todos under separate projects, and all kinds of other stuff. It's a pretty great tool.
posted by Wobbuffet at 7:49 PM on March 25, 2019 [1 favorite]

Make folders in your inbox that are the span of a week like this:

FU March 25-31
FU April 1-7

Etc. Then file emails that you need a follow up by $DATE in the folder for the date you need the follow up. On Monday of each week, go into that folder and email everyone in it back. Once someone responds, move the thread to wherever it would normally go.

It's okay, this is common - but you can do this!

(And yes I do find the "follow up" acronym amusing, but you can pick something else)
posted by warriorqueen at 7:51 PM on March 25, 2019 [5 favorites]

I use Google Calendar "tasks" for this. I send the email then note it by making a task for x days from today to check on it. I then follow my calendar to-do's and if I need to give it a few more days, I just move it.

Also, I did think this was a great idea, and will be stealing it:

Minor fix -- recognize the cases in which you have enough clout to write something like `Unless you have revisions, I will do $FINALACTION on $DATE.' (And then set yourself a reminder to do it!) Or `We are assuming $BESTGUESS and will proceed accordingly unless you inform us otherwise.'
posted by Toddles at 8:01 PM on March 25, 2019

I have an issue with this too. What's mostly working for me... not always, but usually... is making a two-pronged to-do list:

To do (no barrier) and to do (barrier).

The first to do list are the things I can accomplish without waiting for anything in particular to happen. The second is things I have to do, but which need some other thing to occur first. When I put something on the second list, I always write down the barrier in parentheses, so that I can check frequently to see if that thing has happened.

If the barrier is something that I need to poke at, I'll give myself a specific date/time when I should poke it.

For example: Send Document X to John (when Sally sends it to me) (Follow-up: 3/31)

This also makes my to-do list seem a lot less scary because the (barrier) list is always a lot longer.
posted by gloriouslyincandescent at 8:03 PM on March 25, 2019 [6 favorites]

I mostly use Google tasks for this but Google tasks is my primary tool for tracking work to-dos and schedules.

I think you MIGHT be able to handle some of your issues by expanding on your use of email + snooze--for example, forwarding an email that requires a specific follow up to yourself while adding a note spelling out your next action step, then snoozing the forwarded email for the appropriate amount of time. And for tasks that don't have an associated email, you can send an email to yourself and then snooze it. (I also sometimes forward brief, cryptic emails to myself with a note that includes appropriate keywords so that I can archive them and have some hope of finding them again).

But in all honesty, if every day you get 3-5 new tasks/things you need to keep track of, you really need a solution that will allow you to visualize those upcoming tasks on a regular basis throughout the day and not just have a bunch of snoozed emails lurking in your archive waiting to spring on you at some moment when you least expect it and aren't in a position to deal with them. Like I said, I have used Google Tasks for years for tracking tasks and deadlines. Anything email-based is easily added to a task list, along with notes about action steps, time of day for things that are associated with a time frame, etc. If the first action step is completed but there's an additional step (for example, a project is delivered but I need to invoice it), I reschedule the task and make a new note about the next step. Tasks only get completely checked off when all the action steps are completed and it's completely closed. I only use one master task list that contains both my work tasks and upcoming personal chores like tax stuff. I keep google tasks open next to my gmail tab and I always have a gmail tab open. This has allowed me, a person with ADHD, to pose as a relatively reliable self-employed person without any boss or other external structure to help me remember and keep track of my workload and an average 2-3 separate project deliveries every day.
posted by drlith at 8:23 PM on March 25, 2019 [3 favorites]

If you tend to use e-mail as a to-do list, you can also send yourself e-mails so they appear in your inbox and sit there until you deal with them. When I am waiting on something from someone and there's no originating e-mail, I frequently do this, so that I daily see an unread e-mail entitled "Need budget from Pam" (from me to me) sitting there in my inbox and remember to keep hassling her so I can delete that fucker.

(I am also HUGE on using tasks/reminders in my google calendar so when I send something like "if I don't hear from you I'll just submit it as-is" I also put a reminder in for two weeks from now "submit thingie as-is because I didn't hear from Joe")

For things like the 10 invoices, can you make a special to-do list just for that event, where you note all the invoices you should receive and check them off as that occurs? I usually do this in google keep (the sticky notes thingie), and just make a to-do list related specifically to that THING that I'm doing, and it would include all the various details that were my responsibility, from double-checking the menu to ensuring all invoices are sent to the right person to getting RSVPs from the speakers and whatever. I make it overly detailed and since it's in Keep, I can add things to it from my phone if I happen to think of them while I'm standing in line at the supermarket, and then sit down at my computer and have it nice and big in front of me.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 8:26 PM on March 25, 2019

Ah...sorry I glossed over your reluctance to add things to your to-do list because it is too full and scary...that sounds like an underlying issue that does not have a technology solution, unfortunately. Your to-do list is overwhelming probably because you probably have too much to do, and not adding things to your to-do list even though they are literally things you need to do is not going to solve the overwhelm at all, and is in fact making more work for yourself because putting out fires after they've gotten big is more work than dealing with them when they're small.
posted by drlith at 8:29 PM on March 25, 2019 [2 favorites]

Wrike has a free offering (5 users) and includes a decent Gantt Chart functionality with email reminders when things are overdue or even coming up.

The dependencies function of their Gantt chart is pretty easy to work with.

Wrike was forced on us at work, but I've grown to appreciate it as a useful tool.
posted by porpoise at 8:41 PM on March 25, 2019

I try to look at things week-by-week and try to use my email Inbox to hold ongoing items.
At the end of the week, I will go through that week's emails and forward to myself emails that are for 'undone' tasks or project parts.
Forwarding the email keeps any attachments there and also makes this new email 'unread' status.
On Monday, i can look at these unread emails to strategize and prioritize.
Then I scan through emails on Wednesday and again on Friday for 'undone' tasks to forward into the next week.
posted by calgirl at 8:44 PM on March 25, 2019

In the "it's stupid but it works" camp: I bcc myself on emails I know I will forget to follow up on if the other person drops the ball. This only works if you're diligent about totally clearing your inbox regularly, but it works for me: I get the bcc, I let it sit in my inbox for a week or two while I clear out newer emails, and then at some point I see that it's still there and I need to follow up again.
posted by nakedmolerats at 9:21 PM on March 25, 2019 [2 favorites]

I use boomerang for this, writing an email to myself with a description of what needs checking and then having boomerang send it to me at whatever later date.

This works ok because I use my unread emails as my to do list, but let’s not discuss the current number of unread emails I have.

Can you delegate some? As in, you have an admin assistant who can do some of this follow up for you? If you can’t afford a whole admin, maybe you can get someone from elsewhere in the system for a few hours; it could be worth the money both in terms of your stress level and in terms of the actual money lost by forgetting things!
posted by nat at 2:34 AM on March 26, 2019

I add meetings to my work calendar for myself saying “check on x” and attach whatever info I need to remind myself what the issue is when I circle back to it. This has worked pretty well for both long term and short term items and it forces me to block time to work on them as well. Plus once I know it’s on my calendar I stop worrying that I’ll miss it.
posted by brilliantine at 3:12 AM on March 26, 2019 [4 favorites]

Seconding brilliantine. It sounds clunky but it really works. For example, if you need to hear back on invoice 10 by x date, I would set up an appointment (usually marked "free") with reminders on my calendar on x date - check if you received invoice 10 on x date. Then I can safely forget about that email thread until x date. If I get invoice 10 before that date I can always delete the appointment. In the second example, I would have figured out what your next step would be if you didn't hear back from Finance, and what date x you would need to do that step. Then set up an appointment on date x - If you haven't heard back from Finance, do next step.
posted by peacheater at 4:04 AM on March 26, 2019

Thirding that last one--Anything with a deadline goes into the calendar on the deadline, usually either about a week before the actual deadline or a week or so after the initial email. If you have that many of them, I might actually put a meeting item at the beginning of every week and add items to it--"follow up with finance on X invoices" and "check in with Colleague on edits." Then you have a blocked time to send follow up emails to those items, and if they came through weeks ago, you can just cross them off with no action.

But I also do agree that, if you're at a place where emails tend to go unanswered, writing "I'm going to do X unless I hear from you" is a good system for encouraging people to get back to you. Even if they don't know the answer right away, they're at least inclined to let you know that, rather than let your message languish.

And go easy on yourself. Not an academic, but I've worked in offices for years, and these are things that just happen. Sometimes they cost money. Some of the stories I could tell you would curl your hair, but we're human and we muddle through.
posted by gideonfrog at 4:22 AM on March 26, 2019 [1 favorite]

Does the place you work use slack? I set up reminders in slack. Also Microsoft OneNote is pretty great for tracking shit.

I have found that relying on email for anything other than writing or reading is a bad business process. As a matter of fact I think email for anything is a bad business process lol.

So I guess my advice would be “use anything else other than your email client for managing your workload and hell use anything else other than an email client for sending and receiving email as well”
posted by nikaspark at 5:40 AM on March 26, 2019

I use a little to-do notebook that has a "screw-head" symbol next to every line. Say I have a task that involves sending an email and getting a response. I write "Arrange X" on one line. When I send the email, I write "sent email to Joe the X-Arranger 9/24" on the line just below and pencil in half the screw-head. I leave another line blank just in case before the next task's entry. When the task is done (return email received), I fill in the other half of the screw-head.

On at least a daily basis, I check the notebook for tasks where the screw-head is empty or half-filled in and see what's still pending. On a weekly basis, I recopy all the pending tasks over onto the next set of pages (usually it's a small enough set of tasks that two facing pages in the notebook are enough). This forces me to "check in" with all the pending tasks (and is annoying enough that it motivates me to follow up on the pendings!).

It's low-tech but it's simple enough for me to stay on top of, and that's at least as important to me as capturing a lot of detail.
posted by praemunire at 7:29 PM on March 26, 2019 [1 favorite]

There's a roundup of fancy-email-inbox-programs in Wired right now which suggests that a lot of companies are trying to help with this kind of problem. The Wired article is not a good description of how one would use the various features to keep track of hanging issues, but there are buzzwords to look up.

tl;dr both Outlook and Google Mail have added some relevant features, mostly snoozing
posted by clew at 2:50 PM on April 2, 2019