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Tip: Delegating tasks

thousandheads says:


I've always had trouble delegating tasks, especially to people who haven't made the switch to using Remember the Milk. I have two assistants with different skill sets and interests. So to make delegation easier I:

1) Tag tasks with the name of the assistant who has the right skills and would enjoy completing it.
2) Create a smart list based on the tag for each assistant
3) Make sure the tasks have clear due dates
4) Print out the lists and hand them to the assistants so they can complete the tasks in the order of their choosing as long as they meet the due dates
5) At the end of the day or when they've completed the list they give it back to me so I have a clear idea of what's been done and can update Remember the Milk accordingly.

I've used this effectively in teams of up to 5 so far though the it seemed to work best with a team of two assistants.

Posted at 10:48pm on July 9, 2009

mehardin Pro says:

That sounds like a pretty good plan, but why not complete a REAL list for each assistant instead of a smart list. Then instead of tagging the items, you could just move them to appropriate assitant's list. The advantage of this is you can get a public URL for real lists, so even if your assistant's don't have their own RTM accounts, they can bookmark their lists and see what assignments you have added.

Of course you would still need them to report back to you when they are done with the tasks. They could still print the list from the public URL and check items off and turn it in to you.

Posted 2 years ago

andrewski (Remember The Milk) says:

Or, if they set up RTM accounts, you could use mehardin's approach to actually share those lists with them so that they see them automatically. Then they could also mark them complete. :)

Posted 2 years ago

thousandheads says:

mehardin, I like that idea. That could put more of the activity on them instead of me in that they will be responsible for checking their own tasks. Plus it removes the tasks from my lists for now.

andrewski- I think that would be a good plan though they are a bit intimidated by remember the milk as a program, which I think says more about them then it does about Remember the Milk.

Posted 2 years ago

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