- There's a project that's the right thing for me to do now. (Important, time-sensitive, etc.)
- I don't actually work on it.
- I don't work on anything else either.
I have a work block today. My time log looks like this:
| Task | Start | End | Duration |
| 7:30 | 8:10 | 40 min | |
| [other] | 8:11 | 8:12 | 1 min |
| [other] | 8:12 | 8:25 | 13 min |
| [other] | 8:25 | 8:28 | 3 min |
| Important Task | 8:55 | 9:04 | 33 min lost, 9 min worked |
| [other] | 9:29 | 9:47 | 25 min lost, 18 min worked |
| Block-breaking | 11:58 | 2 hours 11 minutes lost |
The warning signs are pretty clear; I spent a little time on a few things (email is fine, but the others look not-great to me), stalled a half hour before really starting on the Important Task, worked a little on it, switched to something else after incurring a long delay, then stalled for another 2 hours (!). When I look at my past work logs, this is pretty typical, and adds up to a day where I only get a few hours of real work done despite a lot of time in my office.
I can't quickly tell whether I usually get the important task done on the day that I attempt it (i.e. whether those few hours actually accomplish what I wanted to do), or whether it usually has to wait until later in the week. I am pretty confident that I get these tasks done in the week that I attempt them, though.
An obvious option is to work on other things. I don't like this option much; Important Tasks tend to hang over me, and they usually are really time-sensitive.
My experience of these things is that I don't feel like doing them. Lately, they've been pretty complicated pieces of work. They're not something I can do without really paying attention; typically it feels like there's not an easy entry point. In this case, I have a list of parts of the project, and it doesn't feel easy to start on any one of them without loading the whole thing into my brain. I don't feel like loading it into my brain, so I can't start.
[Goes to look at list of parts] A lot of these are also kind of vague, like "figure out x".
[Looks at list again] What if I just had to do one of these? That seems like it wouldn't be hard. I think they feel like they interfere with one another. Maybe I'll just pretend like they don't. That seems like a thing to try.
...after I take a shower.
[Later] Now I'm giving this a shot. Starting on the first subtask...
[Later] Actually trying now.
[Later] Augh, actually doing it now.
Oh gosh, this is not fun, but it is happening. Each of these is a little puzzle, and would be easier to deal with if I had some information that I don't have. First subtask finished, moving to the next.
This seems to have worked, though I'm still slower than I'd like. I'll keep using this when I encounter projects like this that have subtasks; maybe I'll get better at it.
Update: this process seems to have worked well this time, though it worked a lot better when I started fresh on it this morning. I do tend to be better at getting going on tough tasks from a standstill than when I've already worked some, so I'll probably try to identify similar tasks in the future and wait to try them until I can start first thing in the morning.
Also, live-blogging has been much more successful than my previous attempts to solve this problem. +1 for thinking out loud, I guess!
I can't quickly tell whether I usually get the important task done on the day that I attempt it (i.e. whether those few hours actually accomplish what I wanted to do), or whether it usually has to wait until later in the week. I am pretty confident that I get these tasks done in the week that I attempt them, though.
An obvious option is to work on other things. I don't like this option much; Important Tasks tend to hang over me, and they usually are really time-sensitive.
My experience of these things is that I don't feel like doing them. Lately, they've been pretty complicated pieces of work. They're not something I can do without really paying attention; typically it feels like there's not an easy entry point. In this case, I have a list of parts of the project, and it doesn't feel easy to start on any one of them without loading the whole thing into my brain. I don't feel like loading it into my brain, so I can't start.
[Goes to look at list of parts] A lot of these are also kind of vague, like "figure out x".
[Looks at list again] What if I just had to do one of these? That seems like it wouldn't be hard. I think they feel like they interfere with one another. Maybe I'll just pretend like they don't. That seems like a thing to try.
...after I take a shower.
[Later] Now I'm giving this a shot. Starting on the first subtask...
[Later] Actually trying now.
[Later] Augh, actually doing it now.
Oh gosh, this is not fun, but it is happening. Each of these is a little puzzle, and would be easier to deal with if I had some information that I don't have. First subtask finished, moving to the next.
This seems to have worked, though I'm still slower than I'd like. I'll keep using this when I encounter projects like this that have subtasks; maybe I'll get better at it.
Update: this process seems to have worked well this time, though it worked a lot better when I started fresh on it this morning. I do tend to be better at getting going on tough tasks from a standstill than when I've already worked some, so I'll probably try to identify similar tasks in the future and wait to try them until I can start first thing in the morning.
Also, live-blogging has been much more successful than my previous attempts to solve this problem. +1 for thinking out loud, I guess!
No comments:
Post a Comment