I often get the feeling that I am thrashing - lots of little things to do, plenty of interruptions, stuff gets done but it doesn't seem to get done as efficiently as it should. I spend to much time trying to decide what to do next.
So I recently (well, a few weeks ago now) realised that it was time for something to change.
Since then, I have been planning to do one thing each day. Sometime two if the second one was small, but normally one.
If I get an interruption that cannot be dealt with immediately, I schedule it in so that it has it's day, a few days hence.
This has been working REALLY WELL.
- Firstly, there is the feeling of being in control - I have a plan.
- Then there is the feeling of being productive. I can cross something off each day.
- It also means that I know what to do first thing - I have already allocated something to do, so I get stuck in and do it.
- Sometimes things don't take the whole day, and I can do something that was scheduled for a later day and so get ahead of my plans. This doesn't happen often, but it feels good when it does.
- It means that the less-urgent things still get attended to. Maybe not often, but at least sometimes. I have been using my work-at-home day to work on my LaFS filesystem (which I really should create a page about). I haven't spent any time on that for nearly a year
On the whole, I am very pleased.
