Start Right / The Backlog Audit

Ten items, three piles

The list that keeps landing back on your desk is usually three different lists wearing one coat: work worth doing, decisions nobody has made, and ideas that stopped mattering. This one page separates them, puts a finishable sentence on each, and gives you an honest estimate of what each one takes. It takes about twenty minutes.

Download the printable PDF Get the ebook: twelve notes

The ebook is the same thinking in twelve short notes, each with something you can do today. Free, no form.

01 / Do, Decide or Drop

Write down ten things, then label each one

Take the first ten items that come to mind. Not the biggest, not the oldest, the first ten. Then give each one a label.

  • Do

    The inputs exist and the result is clear. A page update with approved copy. A broken form. A deck that needs its numbers refreshed. These can start today.

  • Decide

    Someone has to choose before anyone can start. A rebrand with no agreed audience. A product page with no price. More production time will not fix these. A decision will.

  • Drop

    Last season’s promotion. The idea that felt urgent in March. If nobody would notice it never happened, let it go and take it off the list.

Do not commission execution to avoid a decision only you can make.

02 / The finishable sentence

Every Do item gets one sentence

“Fix the website” hides a dozen decisions. “Replace the outdated service descriptions on these three pages and check them on mobile” gives someone a boundary. Use this shape for each Do item:

The sentence

This is finished when [person] can [action], using [deliverable], and we have checked [condition].

For a contact form, the check is whether the inquiry reaches the right inbox. For a brochure, whether the approved content survived the final export.

Decide items

Write the missing input as one question.

“Which three services go on the home page?” beats “sort out the home page.” Put the name of the person who can answer it next to the question.

03 / An honest estimate

Put a number beside each Do

You do not need to be right. You need to be in the range. These are the ranges we see most weeks.

Under 1 hourA wrong phone number. A dead link. A price change. A social graphic from an existing template. One product added to a store.
1 to 3 hoursA page rewritten and checked on mobile. A one page flyer designed and print ready. A deck refreshed. A landing page from copy you already have. A form rebuilt and tested.
3 to 8 hoursA short video edited with captions. A five page site cleaned up end to end. A catalog section laid out. A workflow automated and documented.

Anything you cannot place in a range is probably a Decide item in disguise.

04 / The sheet

Fill it in and add it up

# Item Do / Decide / Drop Finished when… (or the missing question) Hours
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
Do items total Decide questions to send today  hrs

Most lists come out between three and ten hours of actual work, plus two or three decisions that were never going to be solved by more effort.

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Free worksheet

The Backlog Audit: one page, ten items, three piles

Sort what you keep putting off into Do, Decide and Drop, write the sentence that makes each one finishable, and put an honest estimate of what it takes beside it. Most people find the whole list is smaller than it felt.

In a hurry? Read it on the site or take the PDF now. By email, we send a link to confirm first, then the worksheet follows. Unsubscribe any time.

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One accountable contact: Will Mosley. Start Right, Hendersonville. 19 years in the work.