ShareThis1 |
For one week I will only engage in things I have written down and prioritized. I always jump on the newest issue showing up so I will try to do the opposite. |
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I will just count finished projects and estimate my feeling how it feels to work like this. |
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When one week have passed. |
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Just putting everything down on paper and I think will be a good start for improvements in general. |
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Comments & Observations
Fredrik First step was going through all inboxes starting with the ones at work. Now it's time to prioritize it all and start working on things on the list.
Jul 13, 2010
Fredrik Everything is working fine but I still have some issues with what to do with a small tasks that shows up. This is something I need to solve to get this to scale up when intenstity goes up after the summer.
Jul 15, 2010
Matthew Cornell I'd like to hear more detail about the troublesome small tasks, Fredrik. Are they urgent enough to warrant re-prioritizing? Also, I'm curious to know more about your prioritizing scheme. Good experiment!
Jul 18, 2010
Fredrik The small tasks is colleagues running by with questions, drop in meetings for me to attend and things like that popping up. If I can I withheld them for a while to plan them in but quite often I can't control them.
My work is supposed to be focused on producing based on monthly planning but with a lot of interruptions it is hard to keep it up. I have started documenting things with help of GTD and the Pomodorotechnique to get things under control and have as material to improve it all.
Jul 19, 2010
Matthew Cornell I wonder whether there's a structural mismatch between expectations on you (the monthly plan) and reality. Tracking is a good way to start a conversation about it.
Jul 19, 2010
Avrum Matthew - everyone talks about tracking, but few have laid out a system (with tools) that: a) is easy to use b) provides practical data to be used for mods. Any links or ideas?
Jul 20, 2010
Fredrik Matthew: Yes it is a mismatch as I am supposed to do 6h of planned work a day and 2h of non planned. But most days it is the other way around which has been discussed before but I want to give some real numbers to show how it is affecting my work.
Avrum: I can recommende the Pomodoro technique as it does not get much simple then that (you only need a good timer). You can find more information and a free ebook at http://www.pomodorotechnique.com/resources.html
Jul 20, 2010
Fredrik It have now gone one week so this experiment has come to and end. It has been really successful as only doing written things forces me to :
1. Write things down
2. Prioritize among them
In the end you can say that the big structure falls back to GTD or similair systems. But my greatest discovery is that my defining a timeblock and what I want to do in that block gives a feeling of calm (even under high pressure) and control. The big issue sometimes can be if I am working on things with the highest outcome but sometimes you just have to take a chance. It is better to do something then just spend all times planning what is needed to be done.
Jul 20, 2010
Matthew Cornell Good experiment, Fredrik. Thanks for the summary. Avrum: Re tracking, I lay out some simple ways to collect data in my ebook (http://matthewcornell.org/products.html#where-did-my-day-go). Basically you tally or sum things of interest, such as # interruptions/day, # times pulled off-task, etc. Just paper and pen. Ask me if you need something more specific.
Jul 20, 2010
Brock Tice Fredrik: I had similar problems at work in the past, where I was responsible for producing research, but I was the lab tech/Linux guru, so people would always interrupt me with questions and problems. I made some attempts to use a "Do Not Disturb" sign, or set a time in the afternoon specifically for that stuff, with moderate success. The most successful thing for me (since morning is my best time), is asking people to come back and talk to me about all but the most urgent stuff after lunch. Let me know if you want to discuss some other strategies -- I researched quite a few when I had that problem. The best strategy was working from home, turning off IM, and limiting email checking, but that's not always an option.
Jul 21, 2010