During the course of your daily work routine, you will probably come across certain tasks that I would term as a “hot potato”. These “hot potatoes” are tasks that do not require much of your time to handle, but you risk being the bottleneck if you do not respond promptly.
Literally, no one wants to hold a hot potato for too long (unless you’re masochistic). If all it requires is just a small diversion from whatever you’re doing, then just handle it quickly and pass the hot potato on. Of course, it will require some skill and experience to determine whether a task is a hot potato.
A “hot potato” is a task where:
- You hold up progress if you do not act on it
- It does not take much of your time to do your part and pass it on
- Once you pass it on, you can forget about it and continue with whatever you were doing in the first place