Life Pattern

Tag: to do

  • Are You Getting Things Done?

    In a previous blog article I mentioned that one of the tools I use to fight with the surplus of things to do is a form of the David Alen’s GTD system. In a series of articles I’m going to share the different aspects of the way I manage my goals, projects & tasks, deadlines, priorities etc. I think it will be useful to describe not only my current system but also it’s evolution – the trials and errors I went through. Then after I’ve described the underlying principles and the history of my system I will try do a concise, HOWTO style, summarizing article on it.

    It’s clear that people are unique. The way we think, our paradigms about the world we live in, our environment, the temperament, the work we do for living – it’s all different. There’s no single method for planning and action management that will work best for everyone. The methods that I’m going to describe are so far the best ones for me and my situation. For example I work as a System and Network Administrator – that means that 90% of my job is being done while sitting in front of the computer terminal. I don’t meet with clients, only occasionally communicate with business partners and do weekly meetings with colleagues. Another aspect of my job is that a large part of the tasks I have to do are not planned – these are software security upgrades, overloaded systems, hardware failures, power or connectivity outages and so on. Of course I have some limited control – if I put more effort in the design of the systems I work with, or regularly audit and use multiple layers of security measures then some part of the unplanned work will move to the planned & preventive work quadrant. But in general there’s a lot of ad hoc work triggered by external forces in my job.

    I’m sure most of us have more work to do than it is possible to be done. At least within sensible time frame and having limited resources. If I record every single idea I’d like to see done and never ever throw away anything it’d be an ever growing list of wishes. But the worse thing is that many of these ideas are just “stuff”. Just raw thoughts that are yet to go through planning stage before they become something doable. That’s the thing that makes you feel overwhelmed more than anything else. You don’t know from where to start because you know you can’t do all these things and more are on the way. It all seems hopeless and in the end it is counterproductive. I know people who avoid planning and project management in general because of these precise reasons.

    Is your world taken over by “stuff” as you are running from one crisis to another trying to fix things and hoping that you haven’t forgot something?

    Enters GTD. One of the main strengths of GTD system (at least for me) is that if you stick to it you are forced to convert “thoughts” or “wishes” or “stuff” into actionable tasks or so called “next actions”. One of the major problems I had with more complex projects was that I was hesitant to start them because of their complexity and the constant flow of distractions, which is typical for my job. By having all of my work chewed down to specific next steps, contexts, estimated times, energy levels and so on it’s much easier for me to just pick some work and do it. It makes all the difference to have “Outline the requirements for the new server”, “Get a price quotation” etc. in your task list instead of the fat “Upgrade 10 servers” task. I often have only small blocks of time like 30 minutes or an hour and prior to implementing GTD these small blocks of time were often used or rather misused in a suboptimal way. You see – “Upgrade 10 servers” isn’t something that could be done in 30 minutes and hence I was delaying it too much while waiting for that never coming large block of time. On the other hand “Get a price quotation” definitely fits in the 30 minutes block.

    Another important thing is that I have a trusted system and I know nothing would just disappear or get delayed because it’s hidden in the ever growing pile of “stuff”. Now when a new task enters my perimeter if it’s not really really very urgent I try not to interrupt my current activity. I just write it down and continue working. By having this trusted system to keep my “stuff” for later processing I don’t have to think about it (and get distracted) until its time comes. Then when I’m done with the task at hand I check the accumulated new “stuff” and pre-process it. If it’s something I could do in less than 3 minutes and there are no other tasks that are more urgent I do it right away. Otherwise I write it down as one or more specific “next actions” with appropriate priorities. Sometimes if this is going to end up as a more complex project I enter it as “P&O: Project name” – i.e. I create task in which to plan and organize the project.

    For a very long time I had some problems with setting right priorities until I finally realized that I should evaluate importance and urgency separately and only then merge these two parameters in a single priority parameter. I wrote about urgency vs importance some time ago.

    Another aspect I like about GTD is the additional criteria used to choose what task to do next. When I enter a new task into the system I set various properties which I use later for filtering and sorting. Some of these criteria are priority (combined importance and urgency), context, ETA, energy, start and due dates. For examle sometimes I feel tired and have only 20 minutes left till the end of the work day but since I have energy and time criteria in my system I may choose a task that has highest priority and still fits within my current energy level and time available. Otherwise I’d probably just stare for few minutes at some high priority, high energy task that requires too much time and would eventually go procrastinte.

    If you have difficulties broking the “stuff” down to a list of specific next actions try this: I find it extremely helpful to start thinking backwards – to begin with the end in mind. In the “Upgrade 10 servers” example the last task would be “Decommission the old servers”. But then I must already have copied the data to the new server so lets “Copy data from old server #1 to new server #1”. Obviously I have to have a new server in order to do that. But I can’t just call the supplier and say “Please send me 10 new servers”. I should “Decide on specifications” of these new servers and “Get price quotation” first. I found it important to try and further break down tasks which look like they would take more than two hours. I mean if some task is going to take you two hours there’s a good chance it is still “stuffy”, it’s probably not really well thought and is more of a project than specific action.

    I usually start my day by reading my email, notes left by colleagues, tickets, bugs and checking other communications channels, from which something important may come. I check my calendar as well. I try to do all of this as quickly as possible and I usually finish in about 45 minutes. If there’s something that’s going to take more than 3 minutes I flag it and enter it in my task inbox. If it can be done very fast I’ll do it on the spot. When I’m done with this collecting phase I go over my task inbox and process what’s there by sticking priority, context, time etc. to the tasks and move them into the pile with other already pre-processed tasks. Or if it’s something that has to be done on a specific date I put it in my calendar. Finally I sort the big pile that’s full with next actions and choose some to be done today. Knowing that there are many unplanned tasks to come during the workday I choose tasks with summary ETA equaling about 4 hours. I try to pick 1 to 3 bigger tasks and then some smaller ones to be done in a batch.

    There’s one very important aspect of the GTD system that shouldn’t be overlooked no matter how tempting it might look – that’s the weekly review. It’s purpose is to make sure all outstanding actions, projects and ‘waiting for’ items are reviewed, and that everything is up to date. If you don’t do your weekly review regularly the system will start to fall apart and more importantly – your trust in it will decrease, you’ll feel more stressed and will tend to use it less… and so on in a downward spiral. Please, if you decide to evaluate GTD do your best not to skip the weekly review.

    GTD is the best tactical action management system I know to date. You will probably still have difficulties choosing the “real” importance of actions without good strategic system. I mean without clearly identified goals and long term plans how and to what would you align your short term projects and tasks? But at least you are moving and stress starts to lessen it’s grip. This system will help you to get on track and will allow for some thinking time in which to think out your life goals and visions.

    If you are not familiar with GTD there’s a good overview on wikipedia. But my recommendation is to read the book because there are some important aspects that are not exactly obvious or may look strange at first glance but are well explained and supported by examples in the book.

  • Urgency vs Importance

    As I have a vested interest in project management methodologies I will continue with my thoughts about some of the most fundamental aspects of the gentle art of managing tasks.

    One of the most common mistakes that I repeatedly have done throughout the years and especially in my early years as a system administrator was this of not differentiating between urgency and importance of the tasks. Now I’m convinced that the importance is much more important (pun intended) and I think I’m much better at identifying projects and tasks importance. In my opinion having only the idea of priority without considering both urgency and importance is flawed and doesn’t work well.

    But let’s first take a look at what does the dictionary say about these two words. According to wiktionary important is something that has relevant and crucial value, something that is central or essential. And to quote:

    1988, Robert Ferro, Second Son

    For this was the most important thing, that when a person felt strongly about an issue in life, it mustn’t be ignored by others; for if it was, everything subsequent to it would turn out badly, even though there should seem to be no direct connection.

    So these are the things that lay foundations of what you are doing. The essentials. Things that you may delay but you can’t skip because your undertaking would eventually fail.

    And what is urgency? It comes from the Latin urgente (‘pressing’). Urgent is something that require your immediate attention. Something that should be dealt with right away or it may pass away.

    But here’s the problem – many urgent tasks which are not really important tend to look like they are important just because they pop up from nowhere and steal your attention. Usually they are quite obvious and you feel pressured to get them done.

    And how’d you tell whether a task is important or urgent (it may be both)? This one is harder to tell… but if you look at the definitions given above there are two questions you may ask:

    • what would really happen (in the long run) if I delay or skip this task?
    • does this task move me any closer to my life goals?

    For example Steven Covey has defined four quadrants of time management:

    Urgent Not Urgent
    Important Q1: disasters, crises, deadlines Q2: prevention, planning, recreation
    Not Important Q3: interruptions, distractions, popular activities Q4: trivia, busy work, time wasters

    Examples for Q1 activities, which are both urgent and important, are fire in the kitchen, crying baby, very important project with approaching deadline.

    Q2 activity is to make sure your kitchen is fire code compliant so there’s a smaller chance of catching fire, planning your projects as to avoid deadline crises, improving your skills or making sure you are in top shape by getting enough exercises and quality rest.

    Q3 and Q4 should be avoided as much as possible. Q3 contains things like unimportant phone calls, interruptions from colleagues, IM, short term urgent stuff and fixing minor problems around. Q4 is where trivial tasks or things like watching TV lie. It’s ok to spend some time here if it’s part of a planned downtime – time when you’re refreshing yourself but try to keep it to the minimum.

    I personally try to calculate priority as a combination of urgency and importance. I usually use the formula (urgency + importance) / 2 and then may subjectively adjust the result according to my intuition. For example if a task has 100% for urgency but only 30% for importance it’s priority is 65% and then I decide where it stands compared to other tasks that are already on my list and may further increase or decrease it’s priority. Sometimes I may drop it altogether because there are tasks with higher priority and it’s just not possible to complete the new task on time.

    In order to evaluate a task’s importance you should have clear goals and values defined but that’s a subject for another blog entry 🙂

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  • So many things, so little time

    Unless hours were cups of sack, and minutes capons, and clocks the tongues of bawds, and dials the signs of leaping houses, and the blessed sun himself a fair, hot wench in flame-colored taffeta, I see no reason why thou shouldst be so superfluous to demand the time of the day. I wasted time and now doth time waste me.

    — William Shakespeare

    I feel a little bit overwhelmed lately with so many things to do and so little time. Currently there are some big work flow changes going on at the office. At the same time I’m attending IELTS preparation course. We (me and my wife, well mostly my wife) are also doing a major repair and reconstruction of the small apartment we recently bought. Moreover I’m trying to push forward two more projects of mine and to write to this blog as well. Add all those little things that constantly need your attention – like housekeeping, personal finance management, shopping, paying the bills and so on. My hobbies are almost completely suspended – no time for reading blogs or books, no time for movies, irregular physical activity etc. I can’t wait for the weather to warm up so I could go to work by bike at least (and at last). This way I’ll save some commuting time, will do some exercising and of course I’ll be doing something I enjoy.

    It is easy to feel out of control. And it’s easy to actually get out of control if you don’t have a proper to do system or perhaps exceptional natural organizational abilities. You may choose to be out of control deliberately or to skip tasks entirely until their number drops to the point you don’t need a to do system again… but is that really an option for you? I know there are also some people who really and naturally work well when the final dates are getting closer. But the truth is, most people who claim they work best under pressure actually fall apart, lose sleep, do a sloppy job, become sick, or eventually miss the deadline.

    It’s tricky because you have to do a lot of things but research shows that multitasking is bad for your efficiency. “People who multi-task are less efficient than those who focus on one project at a time”, says a study published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology. “The time lost switching among tasks increases with the complexity of the tasks, according to the research by David Meyer, psychology professor at the University of Michigan and others”. So eventually it turns out that multitasking is not a good option and in order to do more you should do less.

    While my productivity is still far from being at the level I’d like it to be it’s much better than a few years ago. At some point I began to feel that I wasn’t advancing very well. I was switching between various projects sometimes delaying some of them for long periods of time for no good reason. I either kept forgetting some detail or once stopped working on them I was hesitant to start again. And I still felt overwhelmed. I had already tried some project management software like korganizer, planner and Request Tracker, which is actually more of a bug tracking system, but none of them worked for me. So I concluded it’s not only matter of tools but the problem is in my basic understanding of task management or probably my lack of it.

    I’ve performed an extensive research and the most sound system I found was David Allen’s GTD. Since then I have devised pretty good set of rules and tools that help me stay on track and be more productive. I’m constantly getting better at it.

    I still have those waves of entropy when I don’t feel like I want to be organized and just give into procrastination. It might be fatigue or just laziness – I really can’t tell. Probably the better way around would be to just take a leave when I feel down and generally to draw more clear line between work and play. Work hard, play hard as the saying goes.

    My project management system (or should I say my life management system) – I mean the thing that works for me – incorporates bits from many other systems such as GTD methodology by David Alen, some ideas from “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People” – the book by Stephen Covey, “Peopleware” – the book by Tom DeMarco and Timothy Lister, the Most Important Tasks idea from Leo Babauta’s Zen Habits blog and many more. I also use some traditional techniques like Mind Mapping, and in particular cases things like CPM, PERT and GANTT have been useful.

    And of course knowledge doesn’t do any good without the will and discipline to apply it but anyway a proper to do system makes things easier by broking “stuff” down to a more manageable chunks.

    I’m going to cover the specifics of my way to cope with tasks and projects in a series of posts. I hope I’ll further refine, tidy up and improve my system by trying to explain it. I might get some useful comments as well although this blog has very few readers for now.