Waiting is a task

I recently sent an email requesting information and happily crossed it off my to-do list, feeling accomplished in the midst of a busy day. A week later, the manager approached me, asking why there was no progress. Who was to blame—the person I requested information from, who never responded, or me, for not following up?

I see the issue as twofold. First, tasks in the to-do list are often not properly defined. Second, waiting itself is a task that should be actively tracked in your task management system.

Typically, a task is written as something like: "Write Jessica an email and ask for the latest environmental report." Once the email is sent, it gets crossed off the list. However, this assumes Jessica will respond within the necessary timeframe. In reality, responsibility is being handed off without any acknowledgment. The task doesn’t actually reflect the intended outcome—obtaining the environmental report to conduct further analysis, for example.

From personal experience, even colleagues often don’t respond promptly—if they reply at all. And yes, even in a management consulting firm, where you'd expect response times to be under three hours. The truth is, priorities don’t always align.

To stay accountable, it's important to break the process into two tasks:

1. "Write Jessica an email and ask for the latest environmental report."
2. "Wait on Jessica’s reply regarding the environmental report (deadline: [specific date])."

This ensures that nothing gets lost and that all steps toward achieving the goal are tracked. I’d advise against merging these two tasks into one, as it makes tracking progress more difficult. The lower granularity provides clarity and ensures that waiting is an active, managed part of your workflow.

Disclaimer: ChatGPT 4o Model has been used to refine the initial draft. The prompt was "Improve the blog post while keeping my style. Here is the text:".