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For you who prefer listening to reading, this post is also available as an episode of the ""Done!"" podcast:

“Hel­lo?”

Since I think it is a cour­tesy not to keep peo­ple wait­ing for my response for too long, I want to remem­ber to check and respond to activ­i­ty in all my chan­nels. But since there are so many of them, I some­times feel stressed try­ing to keep track of them all and ensur­ing that I have seen and respond­ed to everything.

Doing the rounds with­out a doctor’s coat

This is why I start­ed ​“doing the rounds” in the morn­ings a while back. Per­son­al­ly, I have nev­er done an actu­al doctor’s round (only been the sub­ject of one), so I am not entire­ly sure how they are con­duct­ed, but I believe the pur­pose is to check in on those who need your atten­tion at appro­pri­ate inter­vals (but not all the time though) which is the idea I trans­fer and apply to my chan­nels of communication.

“The rounds” is there­fore the name I have giv­en the rou­tine I do every morn­ing when I:

• respond to any com­ments and mes­sages I have received on LinkedIn,
• respond to mes­sages received in Messenger,
• respond to any text mes­sages I have for­got­ten to reply to,
• respond to com­ments and mes­sages on Instagram,
• respond to any com­ments I have received on Facebook,
• respond to poten­tial com­ments on my blog or YouTube,
• and so on (you get the idea).

I think it is per­fect­ly alright if I do not respond to an inter­ac­tion right away — any­thing up to 24 hours is fine by me. I, there­fore, added every ​“check-in” as its own dai­ly recur­ring to-do task on my dig­i­tal to-do list. That way I ensure that I do not for­get to check one or sev­er­al of my chan­nels, and as a bonus, get the sat­is­fac­tion of tick­ing it off my list as I do.

Less to keep track of

Doing these ​“dai­ly rounds” has pre­vent­ed me from for­get­ting to respond to some­one or remem­ber­ing to reply much lat­er than what I feel is polite, and I no longer feel stressed about remem­ber­ing to check and reply to things hap­pen­ing in all my chan­nels. I can even let them go com­plete­ly for a full day if I should choose to. To be hon­est, it has made quite a pleas­ant difference.

Do this

If you also have sev­er­al places, chan­nels, peo­ple, or sys­tems you need to check in with reg­u­lar­ly, then cre­ate your own ​“rounds” as well. You could, for instance, do this:

• Make a sim­ple list of all the things, places, and chan­nels you need to have a look at every morning.
• Rearrange the order in which you do so in such a way that the ​“rounds” become as easy and smooth as pos­si­ble, and so that you do not need to move back and forth between too many places.
• Deter­mine the steps of the rounds. Do as I did and cre­ate sep­a­rate, recur­ring tasks on your to-do list and group them by either tag­ging them with a ​“Rounds”-category or tag, adding them to the same project group, or what­ev­er it is called in the tool you use. You can also write the steps on a note you see first thing in the morn­ing or in an app you make sure open auto­mat­i­cal­ly when you log onto your com­put­er at the begin­ning of the day.
• Once you have ​“done the rounds” a few times, adjust the steps to refine and improve them slight­ly. That way the rou­tine will do you even more good.

Few­er threads of con­ver­sa­tion dropped

If you ​“do the rounds” every morn­ing, it will become eas­i­er to mon­i­tor all the chan­nels you use to com­mu­ni­cate with oth­ers. You will for­get about and drop few­er con­ver­sa­tions, and can allow your­self to relax between the rounds and instead focus whole-heart­ed­ly on the most impor­tant and high­ly pri­or­i­tized task you have at the moment.

What’s your way?

What do your ​“rounds” look like? Per­haps you have thrown some­thing uncon­ven­tion­al into your morn­ing rou­tine that you want to share with me! Please write and tell me. 

(Speak­ing of com­mu­ni­ca­tion – do you often use chat-based col­lab­o­ra­tion plat­forms like Microsoft Teams, Slack, and sim­i­lar tools? Feel free to check out my tips on how to take con­trol of the flow of chat mes­sages!)