So what am I doing with this? So far, I've purchased an electronic organizer. I've opted for an Apple iPod Touch, which is very slim but has a nice calendar and supports third-party applications. The calendar application supports multiple calendars, so I can have both my work and personal calendars available, but not mixed together.
I've also purchased Things through the iTunes App Store from Cultured Code. It is a GTD-oriented task management application, and so far it seems to be working well. I've started to input all the projects that I have in progress at the moment. I'm also recording any task that I think of as soon as I'm able. The list is depressingly long and growing fast, but at the same time it's also a relief to have one place to look for work to get done. I haven't been using it long, but already it's a relief to know that I have a record of stuff that I need to get done.
I'm also going to try an experiment at the office this week. I'm going to start closing Outlook. I have my calendar available on my iPod Touch, so I don't need to worry about missing meetings. I'll try to check my mail every hour or two, and process everything then. I plan to notify the people who I deal with most often, but everybody else will just have to wait. If it's urgent, they'll be calling anyway.
Sunday, August 3, 2008
A work re-work: time management
I've tried various organization techniques, such as blocking out time for functional areas of my job, trying to pre-schedule my weekly activities, etc. Unfortunately, those haven't really helped. For example, I find that when my calendar tells me that it's time to work on storage I don't know what I should be doing. I know there are things that need to be done, I don't know what I can do at the current time to actually move things forward.
That leads me to today. In an attempt to turn things around, I'm attempting to become better at managing my time. If I don't succeed, I think I'm going to suffer from major burnout. I've already had weeks where I just don't want to do anything at all.
My company has various online training courses, and I started with an online time management course. Unfortunately, it was targeted for people in a more traditional office job where they may have 5-10 major tasks to accomplish in a week, with maybe 20% change based on shifting requirements. Unfortunately, I've found IT to be quite different, with 50-80 smaller tasks to accomplish in a week, with 50-80% change based on shifting requirements.
I'm currently working my way through Time Management for System Administrators by Thomas Limoncelli. While I'm only about half way through the book, there are some valuable tips here. One of the most useful, I expect, is the Mutual Interruption Shield. If you work with other people, set aside times when you are not to be interrupted except in an emergency. The other person fields all questions and requests, which allows you to focus completely on the task at hand. Then you switch places. This gives both of you real focus time. He also advocates establishing routines. This allows you to get the routine work done without having to think about it. The author also provides a simple system for keeping track of tasks that need to get done, and when they're due.
I've also started reading Getting Things Done by David Allen. I'm not very far in, but this book seems a bit more philosophical. The organizational system that the author advocates is definitely more complex, but it may also be more robust. One of the core tenants of this system, as well as Time Management for System Administrators, is to get the lists of things to do out of your head and into some kind of trusted organizer. This can be paper or digital, just so long as it can be counted on.
That leads me to today. In an attempt to turn things around, I'm attempting to become better at managing my time. If I don't succeed, I think I'm going to suffer from major burnout. I've already had weeks where I just don't want to do anything at all.
My company has various online training courses, and I started with an online time management course. Unfortunately, it was targeted for people in a more traditional office job where they may have 5-10 major tasks to accomplish in a week, with maybe 20% change based on shifting requirements. Unfortunately, I've found IT to be quite different, with 50-80 smaller tasks to accomplish in a week, with 50-80% change based on shifting requirements.
I'm currently working my way through Time Management for System Administrators by Thomas Limoncelli. While I'm only about half way through the book, there are some valuable tips here. One of the most useful, I expect, is the Mutual Interruption Shield. If you work with other people, set aside times when you are not to be interrupted except in an emergency. The other person fields all questions and requests, which allows you to focus completely on the task at hand. Then you switch places. This gives both of you real focus time. He also advocates establishing routines. This allows you to get the routine work done without having to think about it. The author also provides a simple system for keeping track of tasks that need to get done, and when they're due.
I've also started reading Getting Things Done by David Allen. I'm not very far in, but this book seems a bit more philosophical. The organizational system that the author advocates is definitely more complex, but it may also be more robust. One of the core tenants of this system, as well as Time Management for System Administrators, is to get the lists of things to do out of your head and into some kind of trusted organizer. This can be paper or digital, just so long as it can be counted on.
A work re-work: background
I've been in my current job for nearly three years, and I've been very productive from early on. When I first started, I was able to work almost entirely on technical projects. This was largely because I was new and there were very few other demands placed on me. I established some good habits such as logging my work daily in OneNote, tracking tasks that needed to be done, etc. I became “the organized one,” a title I never thought would be applied to me.
For the past six months or eight months, I've felt like my productivity has been slipping. Some weeks I look back on Friday and wonder what I've accomplished. I'm spending more and more time communicating about work, and less time doing it. What good habits I developed have started to slip. I will miss days or weeks of work logs, and my task list is getting stale.
Unfortunately, at the same time the amount of work that I'm expected to complete has expanded during this same period. So now I have more to do, but I'm getting less done. I would guess that these are related. As I've become more busy, I've let my productivity tools slide. That has put me into a vicious cycle of getting more and more busy with less and less support from my tools. It hasn't reached crisis stage yet, but I know that there is a problem coming if I don't change something.
This cycle has left me feeling thoroughly unfulfilled at work. I've read both “Now, Discover Your Strengths” by Marcus Buckingham and Donald O. Clifton, and “Go Put Your Strengths to Work” by Marcus Buckingham. These have helped me to get a better idea of what I'm good at and where I need to be. Unfortunately, I'm still scrambling to try to get my current work done. This leaves me precious little time to try to leverage myself into a position where I play more to my strengths.
For the past six months or eight months, I've felt like my productivity has been slipping. Some weeks I look back on Friday and wonder what I've accomplished. I'm spending more and more time communicating about work, and less time doing it. What good habits I developed have started to slip. I will miss days or weeks of work logs, and my task list is getting stale.
Unfortunately, at the same time the amount of work that I'm expected to complete has expanded during this same period. So now I have more to do, but I'm getting less done. I would guess that these are related. As I've become more busy, I've let my productivity tools slide. That has put me into a vicious cycle of getting more and more busy with less and less support from my tools. It hasn't reached crisis stage yet, but I know that there is a problem coming if I don't change something.
This cycle has left me feeling thoroughly unfulfilled at work. I've read both “Now, Discover Your Strengths” by Marcus Buckingham and Donald O. Clifton, and “Go Put Your Strengths to Work” by Marcus Buckingham. These have helped me to get a better idea of what I'm good at and where I need to be. Unfortunately, I'm still scrambling to try to get my current work done. This leaves me precious little time to try to leverage myself into a position where I play more to my strengths.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)