Metadata
- Author: John Cutler
- Full Title:: TBM 367: The Wicked “Big Picture” Loop
- Category:: 🗞️Articles
- Document Tags:: Prioritization techniques,
- URL:: https://cutlefish.substack.com/p/tbm-367-the-wicked-big-picture-loop
- Read date:: 2025-07-13
Highlights
It’s like when someone finally tries to get organized. They list out everything—every task, every loose end, every unfinished commitment. The raw, unfiltered truth. It’s overwhelming. So they clean it up. Group things. Make a top 5 list. Create a dashboard. Something they can look at without spiraling. (View Highlight)
The only time I have personally been able to break this kind of loop is when I hired a coach. Every week, he forced me to turn over every rock. (View Highlight)
The personal productivity analogy here might be that you should run your life a bit fast and loose, ditching the coach, and while that may mean the occasional crash and burn, you’ll generally end up okay. (View Highlight)
The first thing that comes to mind is this knee-jerk reaction to anything that seems to defy “simplicity.” It is an unwillingness to face things as they are, and the ensuing optics game. If a leadership team is unwilling to sit with reality and explore what is happening (View Highlight)
Ultimately, it comes down to intentionality and accountability. Even “high-performing” athletes need a coach to hold them accountable (often for rest, but that is a topic for another post). You need a mechanism to follow the desired path: either a “weekly coach” type model, or holding to your enabling constraints. (View Highlight)
The video shows how you have very fine grained short time horizon stuff (tasks) connecting to bigger and longer horizons in all short of ways (kpis, guardrails, strategic pillars) and what you need to reassess frequently is that narrative (as a short of one-page story).
this video discusses “continuous planning” might help: (View Highlight)