"he would stand in front of management and say "no, fuck that, that's useless". He was quite successful and could "get away" with this behaviour, though I suspect it was this very behaviour which had something to do with his success."
Your manager gets what Merlin Mann could not, the most important tasks are the ones you need to do ^right now^, to completion.
It's interesting that Bethlehem Steel is mentioned. Charles R. Schwab, the Bethlehem Steel boss, someone who Thomas Edison described as a ^hustler^, engaged Ivy Ledbetter Lee to improve productivity at Bethlehem for managers. [1] What is not mentioned is the fact Lee was a business owner of an early PR company and approached Bethlehem for business. His hack to Bethlehem management, set aside 15 minutes at the end of a day and specify six tasks you need done tomorrow;
* Prioritise them, one to six;
* Do each task, in order, till finished;
* Work your arse off;
* Left-over tasks are added to tomorrows list;
* Repeat;
I coin this, JIT task task management [3] and that simple behaviour your manager shows reflects this simple idea. I Merlin Mann totally misses this fact. [4] I was so impressed with Lees idea I wrote an article and some software to explore this idea.
The best boss I ever had back when I worked retail used to walk the store every morning, write down all tasks for that day and then prioritise them, he then gave that to me and I just worked the list until finishing time, I asked him once if he minded I didn't get them all finished every day and he replied "Nope, I don't expect you to", it was incredibly unstressful, I always knew what I should be doing, communication overhead was low and the list was a measurable measure of progress over a day.
Last I heard he was senior management in the whole company so well deserved I'd say as a former sub-ordinate.
" I always knew what I should be doing, communication overhead was low and the list was a measurable measure of progress over a day."
It's no accident, and I'm really getting to see why this technique works. It's simple. Given you have a days work, working from a short list is do-able. If the tasks are prioritised things get done.
The bit I've found hard: when things interrupt, the old list is useless and a new one can be made to reflect this. It really is a great hack and hearing stories from people who have worked with this is a real confirmation that it can work.
we manage entire projects with a simple milestone list and a constantly updated list of current tasks and who is going to do them (action items, in mba blogspeak).
'make a list and then do it' is way too simple for a lot of people to understand. most people are looking for either shortcuts, or magic solutions like special software.
Your manager gets what Merlin Mann could not, the most important tasks are the ones you need to do ^right now^, to completion.
It's interesting that Bethlehem Steel is mentioned. Charles R. Schwab, the Bethlehem Steel boss, someone who Thomas Edison described as a ^hustler^, engaged Ivy Ledbetter Lee to improve productivity at Bethlehem for managers. [1] What is not mentioned is the fact Lee was a business owner of an early PR company and approached Bethlehem for business. His hack to Bethlehem management, set aside 15 minutes at the end of a day and specify six tasks you need done tomorrow;
* Prioritise them, one to six;
* Do each task, in order, till finished;
* Work your arse off;
* Left-over tasks are added to tomorrows list;
* Repeat;
I coin this, JIT task task management [3] and that simple behaviour your manager shows reflects this simple idea. I Merlin Mann totally misses this fact. [4] I was so impressed with Lees idea I wrote an article and some software to explore this idea.
References
[1] James Clear, "The Ivy Lee Method" ~ http://jamesclear.com/ivy-lee
[2] "Zero Tasks: Maximum Six. Add new tasks to leftovers. Prioritise. Kill one task at a time. Repeat.", http://seldomlogical.com/2016/NOV/19/zero-tasks/
[3] A month ago: " To-Do Lists Are Not the Answer to Getting Things Done" ~ https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12999565#13002833
[4] Merlin Mann, "Inbox Zero" (July 23, 2007) ~ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z9UjeTMb3Yk