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The fire hose is the source of new obligations and agreements I make in my life – information I choose to look at, projects I undertake, commitments I make to others. I have a feeling that I take on more than I can ever complete; although this feels like a major source of anxiety for me, I’m not sure it is or whether it’s even necessarily a problem (David Allen talks about looking with equanimity at a Context List with hundreds of items on it). I want to gather data on the scale of the problem, and make observations about my behavior and my feelings.
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Record the number of new projects, tasks, and obligations I add each day, and the number I complete. Set up an Excel spreadsheet for this. Journal about feelings and observations. The time for behavior change is after the data is collected. |
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Four weeks of data collection, starting August 10 and complete September 6. |
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Record with equanimity; journal intentionally about feelings around this; notice patterns without judgment. |
Turning off the fire hose
Created Aug 18, 2009
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Comments & Observations
Dan Owen I got a partial week of tracking in before the official start of the experiment. As I suspected, I'm adding more tasks than I'm completing almost every day. This experiment is encouraging me to add discreet next actions rather than projects -- I'm afraid this is a kind of cheating to keep my productivity looking higher than it is.
Aug 18, 2009
Dan Owen This is like a demonstration project for the signal vs. noise phenomenon. Daily, the numbers vary wildly. Averaged, they're smoother. For week #1, I completed virtually as many tasks as I added -- my net total change was only +1 tasks per day. Raw data: total # of tasks added for the week: 82. Total # of tasks completed: 75 Avg # of tasks completed per day: 10.7.
Beta note: it would be useful if I could upload my tracking spreadsheet here.
Aug 19, 2009
Dan Owen This experiment ties in with my "successful day" experiment in a few ways. One way involves whether to add projects to my task list, or only discreet next actions. If I add a project that has five next actions, and I don't complete the project, then my task count goes up by one, my tasks completed goes up by zero, despite having worked all day. On the other hand, if I add the project as five next actions, complete three, then my net task count goes up by two. If I finish the project the next day, my net count will decline -- by one in the first case, by two in the second. Is any of this important? I'm not sure, but it feels like noise, not signal.
Aug 19, 2009
Matthew Cornell Lots going on here, Dan. Good experiment - basically a measurument of whether your cup runneth (or will run) over.
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I wrote about five cases related in The Productivity I/O Sweet Spot (http://matthewcornell.org/2008/06/the-productivity-io-sweet-spot-or-why-balance-a-bad-thing.html)
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Re: the experiment changing you, go with it! That's one of the claims we make - that simply observing can lead to kaizen-style behavior changes. I wouldn't call it cheating if it lasts beyond the experiment ;-)
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Re: numbers, 10 tasks a day sounds good to me. It depends on granularity, of course, and ultimately what your measure of success is (your "successful day" experiment).
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Re: tracking tasks vs. projects, I'd say either is fine, though at the day-to-day level, tasks make more sense. I wouldn't mix them - they tell you different things.
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Thanks for sharing - your results keep me coming back :-)
Aug 19, 2009
Dan Owen I have 3 1/2 weeks of data now, and I have to say that I'm loving this experiment. "Quantifying anxiety" has a very calming effect on me, and tracking this specific source of anxiety is very satisfying.
So far, I'm falling behind by only about 2 tasks a day on average, which is to say that I'm adding on average two more tasks than I complete. I'm still completing about 10 tasks a day. If I put my mind to to it, I can pick off an extra two tasks without a great deal of effort, if it feels necessary, which I have to say it's not.
Although I add both tasks and projects to my list, when I tackle a project I have been going back to delete the general project name ("scan documents in "scan documents" folder") and add next actions instead (scan documents, shred as necessary, file hard copies). In this way, one task may become many, but "doing" becomes quantified, and that's ultimately what I'm after.
I'm particularly liking the fact that all new projects and next actions start out on my tracking sheet. Then I transfer them to my context list. Bringing these two lists up to date is the first task of my day. Then I plan my day and go from there. Staging things in this way is strangely satisfying.
Also, I can see that I add a ton of new tasks during the weekly review. This makes sense: it's when I'm looking over all my projects and deciding how to move them forward. It also makes sense that it would be a source of anxiety for me: lots of tasks getting added at once, few of them getting done. But I see now that lots of catching up happens during the week.
I can see now that I'm not being as overwhelmed by the sheer numbers as I thought I was. I re-organized my context list this past weekend, and I can see that the way I'm presenting the information in this list also has an impact on my anxiety level. Just to see, I organized items in contexts like, "Important but not urgent" and "Easy and fast" and "Aggravating but not urgent," and "Watch daily and decide." It turns out that the number of hair-on-fire tasks is tiny, but the number of "Aggravating but not urgent" tasks is fairly big.
Lots of clarity and empowerment coming from this.
Aug 31, 2009
Matthew Cornell This is extremely interesting to me, Dan. The results you're getting from just observing itself is impressive. Nice analyses, those. It goes to our internal persception being out-of-sync with reality, which you're quantifying. I don't know the psychology, but putting two conflicting ideas together makes room for change.
I'll have to learn more about tasks going onto the tracking sheet first, and how it's satisfying.
> Aggravating but not urgent" tasks is fairly big
Boy, I'd want to whittle those down AMAP.
Good work!
Sep 01, 2009
Dan Owen Matt, I'll e-mail you my tracking spreadsheet.
Re: aggravating but not urgent tasks. I agree. About 6 weeks ago I took a day and just did those tasks: man, was that a satisfying day's work! That satisfaction carried me forward for a couple of weeks after that. Maybe it's time for another push.
Sep 03, 2009
Matthew Cornell That's inspiring, Dan. I love those days too.
Sep 04, 2009