Long Live the Whiteboard

My last post (The Power of Writing Things Down) generated more comments than usual. Many of you were intrigued by research showing how writing things down by hand improves retention, clarity and commitment and also reduces stress.

There’s also the accountability factor. If we take the time to write down our goals or obligations rather than keep them in our head (or phones) we’re more likely to complete them. Taking it a step further, if we write those goals or obligations on a publicly viewable whiteboard, research shows we are up to 1.4 times more likely to achieve them.

The whiteboard (aka marker board, dry-erase board, dry-wipe board, or pen-board) has long been associated with corporate conference rooms. It’s sometimes maligned as an outdated tool in this digital age – like the fax machine and typewriter. But I’ve found whiteboards to be even more useful than ever in this era of 24/7 distraction.

Everyone uses whiteboards differently

I keep an oversize whiteboard in my office even though I rarely hold team meetings there. I like having a large, non-permanent white canvas to organize my thoughts, ideas and obligations. It’s posted right next to the front door and is always in direct line of my sight. I can’t avoid looking at my whiteboard and it has all of my immediate must-do items as well as my longer-term projects that can’t be completed in one sitting. Unlike apps and project management software, I can’t turn it off or swipe left. Those obligations are always staring at me and can’t be avoided.

I’m not big on to-do lists, task lists and punch lists, because they’re so binary. Either you got it done and checked off the list, or you didn’t. That doesn’t leave room for incremental progress, which is so crucial for knowledge workers like us. When you have a complex presentation due two months from now, or a book chapter due in six weeks, or a new client who wants to sign on next quarter, it can be extremely debilitating to see an empty box left unchecked day after day, month after month. It’s far more inspiring to see that you’ve made incremental progress on those long-term initiatives. If I’m roughly 50% complete, I like to shade in half the box next to the project. If I’m just getting started, I shade in a small amount, rather than leaving it blank. And if almost to the finish line, I shade in most of the box, but not all of it.

I use various colors for certain kinds of projects, but my favorite tactic is using directional arrows. As knowledge workers, so much of our day is spent either waiting for someone to make a decision about something we’ve sent them, or they’re waiting for us to act on something they’ve sent us. It’s kind of like a mental tennis match. So, I use left-facing arrows next to items for which the ball is in my court and I use right facing arrows to designate items for which the ball is in a client’s or colleague’s court. Even on days when nothing gets checked off the list, if I leave my office with more right-facing arrows than left-facing ones, I go home in a good frame of mind. By contrast, most notetaking and to-do list apps are linear. They don’t seem to accommodate the unique, free-form way that humans process thoughts, ideas, and workflow.

But a whiteboard isn’t just for brainstorming or keeping track of tasks. It can save you from cranial overload because it gives you a convenient place to dump all the stuff that clutters up your brain. Your tasks, initiatives and projects are captured in a convenient location where you don’t have to think about them until you are ready to address them. That frees up lots of bandwidth for higher and more productive thinking. Even better, you don’t have to set up an account, a log-in, or download an app to use your whiteboard. And you don’t have to sift through endless paper files or cabinet drawers to find an idea or project outline you tucked away for safekeeping many months ago.

 

*** Our free resources section has more about this topic.

But here’s the other benefit of a physical, tactile whiteboard. It’s a finite space. When you start to run out of room, you can’t keep adding expansion slots or writing in a smaller font. You have to start prioritizing and deleting.

I probably re-sort the items on my whiteboard three or four times a day. When something has to be erased from the board because it’s not a high enough priority, I find it tremendously liberating not to have to keep thinking about it.

As Winston Churchill liked to say: “Don’t let perfection be the enemy of progress.”

Conclusion

What are you and your colleagues doing to capture tasks and make incremental progress? I’d love to hear from you.

#businesswriting,#thoughtleadership, #productivity