The Red Urchin pillars are built on the principles described above and enabled by the Red Urchin application. There are four key pillars:
- Accessibility — have your system close by, and write things down
- Thinkability — which of the 4 Ds? How long will it take? What do I need to complete it?
- Continuity — learn to pre-populate and use planning cycles
- Responsibility — use the rules of delegation
Accessibility
We covered this in the key principles and in the article Writing things down! NOW! In short: use the Red Urchin application to write things down, every time. Have it with you everywhere — laptop, phone, wherever you are. There is no more important habit in the Red Urchin ecosystem than recording your tasks and the information that goes with them as soon as they arrive (or as close to it as you can manage).
Thinkability
The concept is an easy one, but it takes discipline. Because you have followed the first pillar and your Red Urchin app is close by and accessible, you can ask yourself a few quick questions that apply a first level of filtering to incoming information.
Process the task using the 4 Ds of the Red Urchin system (see The 4D Decision), then ask yourself: what else do I need in order to complete this task when I get to it, and will I be able to find it when I need it? (see Using a Container System).
These quick assessments take only seconds and make an enormous difference to the success of your time management. Once you have processed an incoming task using the 4 Ds, you know when (and whether) you are going to complete it, what you need in order to complete it, and how long it will take. Do this with every incoming task and you have a complete picture to plan with.
Continuity
Time management is not a one-shot effort. It takes continual processing and habit-forming to embed the processes and planning into your daily life and consciousness. That is why continuity matters: once you have worked out how best to tailor the Red Urchin system to you, you must keep applying and improving those processes.
Using key concepts such as pre-population (see A Typical Day) and running effective planning cycles throughout your day (see Cycling through your day) are simple but important skills. They help you apply the Red Urchin system consistently, and that consistency is what makes you a highly effective human.
Responsibility
Responsibility is a lofty goal, and one that managers struggle with in both themselves and the people who report to them. It works hand in hand with the principle of delegation. If you delegate a task, you automatically make that person responsible for it — or do you? Perhaps you are only making them sub-responsible, but that is a matter for another article (see Art of Delegation).
Delegating effectively is a key pillar of the Red Urchin system, and we emphasise the word "effectively". How many times has a manager delegated a task, then wondered in vain, well after the due date, why they have heard nothing? Red Urchin's third D — Delegate — lets you hand tasks off, but how do you do that without suffering the same fate as the manager above? First, set the expectation with everyone you delegate to that they understand the following rules of task delegation:
- Do you understand the task you have been delegated?
- If not, ask questions so that there is no confusion about the task (a lack of clarity is normally the delegator's fault)
- Do you understand the quality expected of the completed task?
- Do you understand the date and time by which the completed task must be returned to the delegator?
- Do you understand that if you cannot meet that date or that standard, it is your responsibility to let the delegator know?
Second, use the "Due from Others" section in Red Urchin. It is one of the most underused functions in any time management system, and it makes a huge difference to your efficiency. Delegating a task effectively does not just get it out of your field of view and off your subconscious — it also means you know exactly when it is due back and to what standard.
We now have the principles and pillars of the Red Urchin system. Next comes taking control of your life using the system alongside the application — but before that, we need to address balance.