Our weekly Level 10 Meeting Issues List has ballooned to over forty items, making it impossible to prioritize effectively and causing our leadership team to feel completely overwhelmed before we even start IDS. How do we clean up and manage a bloated Issues List?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

A bloated Issues List is a sign of poor discipline. It usually means you are treating the weekly list as a dumping ground for long-term ideas, minor tasks, or issues that should be solved outside the meeting.

First, implement a strict purging process. Take anything that does not need to be solved in the next ninety days and move it to the Long-Term Issues List on your V/TO. This instantly cleans up your weekly focus.

Second, look for duplicates or related items. Often, five separate issues are actually symptoms of one larger root problem. Combine them into a single issue.

Third, empower your team to solve minor issues outside the Level 10 Meeting. If an issue only requires two people to talk for five minutes, they should pick up the phone and solve it during the week. It should never make it to the weekly leadership meeting list.

Finally, when you start your weekly IDS, only prioritize the top three issues. Ignore the rest of the list. Do not worry about getting to item number thirty. Focus entirely on solving numbers one, two, and three.

Keeping your list lean and focused reduces anxiety and ensures your team has the energy to solve the most critical obstacles.