SKIRMISHER

Now that Bill Gates is handing over Microsoft’s reins to dear old Ozzie, it’s interesting to glimpse how The Man worked in the past decades. In an essay published in Fortune last April, Gates talks about hits and misses, endless meetings, and how something like paper has practically vanished from his workaday.

I’m not big on to-do lists. Instead, I use e-mail and desktop folders and my online calendar. So when I walk up to my desk, I can focus on the e-mails I’ve flagged and check the folders that are monitoring particular projects and particular blogs.

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Staying focused is one issue; that’s the problem of information overload. The other problem is information underload. Being flooded with information doesn’t mean we have the right information or that we’re in touch with the right people. I deal with this by using SharePoint, a tool that creates websites for collaboration on specific projects. These sites contain plans, schedules, discussion boards, and other information, and they can be created by just about anyone in the company with a couple of clicks.

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I’ve been doing this for over 12 years. It used to be an all-paper process in which I was the only one doing the reading and commenting. Today the whole process is digital and open to the entire company. I’m now far more efficient in picking the right papers to read, and I can add electronic comments that everyone sees in real time.

Microsoft has more than 50,000 people, so when I’m thinking, “Hey, what’s the future of the online payment system?” or “What’s a great way to keep track of your memories of your kid?” or any neat new thing, I write it down. Then people can see it and say, “No, you’re wrong” or “Did you know about this work being done at such-and-such a place?”

HOW I WORK (By Bill Gates) [FORTUNE]

Stumble it!