Monday: Going to the DV and exchanging my license – surprisingly painless.
Tuesday: Going outside.
Wednesday: Laundry, paying bills.
Thursday: Dealing with insurance people.
Friday: Going to Carleton
How Was It?
Not as bad as I thought it would be, most things were less awful than anticipated (apart from going to Carleton). Even though I never want to go outside in the morning, I enjoy the walk into school because of the thinking time it gives me – also, it’s not been that cold this week!
I couldn’t go with the exercise live frog because I’ve been ill all week, but I realized that my live frogs were often just things I wanted to procrastinate on because I think they’ll be unpleasant. In some cases that was justified – in others it was nowhere near as bad as I anticipated.
Worth Continuing?
Yes, but maybe on a smaller scale. Just taking one thing I want to procrastinate on and forcing myself to do it first may be helpful for me.
We’re having an event at WISE next week, we were hoping to have someone from SASS to come and give some advice on time management. But SASS is never open, and now we have something much better.
But when I was panicking for a speaker, thinking about maybe asking another student to speak I started to wonder if there’s any point giving time management advice.
For me, time management consists of carving out the quiet time and space that I need to create. One of my office mates and I were talking yesterday, and he’s the same way. Our supervisor, though, was saying that he needed a little pressure.
I have a friend who plans every minute of every day in this insane spreadsheet that has her working from 6am to 11pm (she actually sticks to it too), and another who discovered the need to be more organized last semester, and for him it consists of notebooks that he writes everything down in.
For me, I take a more technological solution. Everything is digital, and my calendar and todo list are always accessible via my iPhone or whichever computer I happen to be working on. My boyfriend is different again, he doesn’t seem to have a todo list or much in the way of a calendar, but he somehow stays on top of everything. Honestly, most of what I’m doing is in my head as well. However if I don’t write it down it makes me anxious. My boyfriend doesn’t seem to have that problem, though.
So I’ve started to think that we don’t need time management advice so much as a series of questions to reflect on.
Do we need clear spaces? If so, how can we better carve them out?
Do we need stuff scheduled every day in order to pressurize us?
Maybe we need a balance of both? For me, I like 2-3 days clear, the rest scheduled.
What’s the best fit for us in terms of how we store our schedule? Do we need a notebook or diary, or is an electronic device better (note, you need to remember to charge it).
How are we at balancing our time? Do we need to schedule “me time” or “organization time” or does taking breaks for these tasks come naturally?
Do we need a more regimented approach, such as “work on X for 2 hours and then work on Y for 1.5”?
Or does a more relaxed approach of, “work on X on Wednesday” work better?
What do you think? What questions do you ask yourself in order to manage your time better?
Reflecting on Sunday’s post on Effectiveness and Time Management, and my reluctance to eat live frogs in the morning, it’s occurred to me that:
I don’t tend to have a “most important task”, because most of my tasks are fairly open ended. Each day I have something that I want to make some progress on, and normally I do. This is working OK.
I don’t tend to start the something in the morning, either because it requires me being in my office, or I have other things that I want to clear out the way so I can focus on it.
In general, the afternoon is my peak work time for these kind of tasks – provided the morning goes well.
Whilst my most important task may be a live frog, there are other live frogs that are not necessarily the most important task.
Getting better at eating live frogs first thing, may improve my self-discipline and this will flow to other areas of my life.
To this end, I’ve made a list of my live frogs. And I plan to eat one first thing in the morning every day this week. Here they are:
Exercise. I like exercise, I do, but not first thing in the morning because I worry it means I don’t start work until too late and it makes me hungry all day. Also, I think my metabolically-optimum time for working out is mid afternoon (ideally around 4ish). But I can’t always work to that so I should just get up and go swimming instead. Normally, though, I don’t – I did this morning though, and I feel better for it.
Going outside. The thing that stops me starting on my “most important task” earlier is often that I have to psych myself up to go outside because it’s sooooo cold. That’s the difference between fall and winter for me, in the fall I can make it into my office by 10am easily. In the winter, I’m doing well to make it in by lunchtime.
Grocery shopping. I hate the grocery store, and this also involves going outside, so double whammy. Thing is, the quickest time to make the trip is in the morning because the store is less busy.
Dealing with people. There’s a reason why, where possible, I schedule all my meetings for afternoons. I don’t really like talking to people in the morning, so I avoid them.
Laundry and other household chores. We have a washing machine in our apartment (rare in Canada) so I don’t get to moan about this too much, but I hate hanging it up and putting it away when it’s dry.
Looking at this list, it strikes me that none of these are “work” tasks. But they are things than can potentially take me away from my afternoon productive time, if I let them. Or cause problems if they don’t get dealt with. It annoys my boyfriend that I can’t have a conversation in the morning, for example, and it’s a pain to have no clean clothes or have to stop work early to clean the apartment because people are coming over.
Your list will be different, of course. Join me in the Live Frog Challenge? I’ll check back in with you on Friday to let you know how I’m doing.
So my winter break reading consisted of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Getting Things Done, and The Power of Less (all Amazon). There’s a large amount of overlap between the first two and The Power of Less, but it’s a nice summary with some good thoughts on achieving your goals. 7 Habits is big-picture focus and GTD is more low level nitty gritty, so I think they complement each other well – I’d really recommend you read them both, if you’re looking to be more productive and effective, but in case you don’t even have the energy to read even The Power of Less I’m going to summarize some tips I’ve picked up from them.
Who are you and what are you trying to do?
One of the first things Covey asks you to do in 7 Habits is write down your different roles. We all have different roles we play – for myself, I’m not just a student, I’m also a TA, and President of WISE, and a girlfriend, and a friend, a daughter, a blogger and something else that I’ve not quite defined yet. Think about all your different roles – because you need to find time for each of them.
Write it down. And I do mean everything. Then review it, regularly.
The most helpful thing I got from GTD is the concept of making an inbox and putting every task, however small or vague or unlikely to be completed, on to it. Because it gets it out my head and allows me to focus on whatever I’m working on. If it’s something that small, like less than two minutes and you don’t think it’s worth writing down, why not just do it, instead? For paper, I have an A4 pad that I carry around with me, because I don’t have an office per se, and I don’t have much paper at all. This is where I collect things, and it gets processed on Fridays along with my email inbox and my task list inbox.
I’ve set aside time to process that inbox, as well as my email inbox, once a week. I was doing that yesterday, and it was actually kind of relaxing. Friday afternoon is good for me because it’s part of tying up the loose ends from this week, and planning the next, which is what my weekly review is about as well.
Give yourself a break.
We can’t be 100% on the ball, all the time. We can’t work every hour we’re awake week in, week out. Accept that you probably won’t achieve everything you want to do.
Go on, take a moment, it’s liberating.
Now, pick out the things that are most important. But keep the others on a “someday / maybe” list. You can always come back to them.
Find a way to pick out the things that are suitable for your energy level at that time. Label things with how long they’ll take so you can choose short tasks for when you have a limited amount of time. Doing a bunch of small tasks can be a good way to amp up your energy level (just don’t get lured in to thinking you can spend all your days like this and achieve awesome things).
Organizing in increments is OK.
Can’t get through inbox right now? Put it all in a folder “to organize” and go through it half an hour at a time, until it’s done. Take one piece of furniture at a time in your apartment to organize and then pick another one next week, or next month. You don’t need to achieve perfection before you can start being more organized! Organize what you need to to get started, live organized, and make time to clear the bits of your life that aren’t as organized up one by one.
Make time for Quadrant 2.
There’s a ton of stuff in our lives that’s important. And there’s always stuff that’s urgent. But just because something is urgent doesn’t mean that it’s important, and vice versa. Making time for the important-but-not-urgent (Covey calls this Quadrant 2) pays dividends. This can be stuff like exercising, or reading around your field if you’re a graduate student, or expanding your programming abilities and knowledge if you’re a programmer (check out this post – learn to program in 10 years). I think making time to process your tasks and review your week falls under this too. This is building your network before you need a job. Look at your life, at the things you should be doing but aren’t urgent right now. Start making time for them, and see what good comes from it.
As a graduate student, if you take a course you have to balance it with working on your thesis. It’s easy for the course to be more urgent, because everything is to a deadline. I deliberately start my assignments a while after they are issued. Yes, this sometimes causes me last minute stress if I’ve misjudged how long it will take or things come up, but if I spend that time before I start on Quadrant 2, I get huge benefits and make progress on my thesis – which is what will ultimately determine the date of my graduation. And I know I’m better at postponing the start date for something that will become urgent, than I am stopping when something is good-enough-but-not-perfect.
Also – check out this post from Study Hacks. What I took from it is that devoting time to Quadrant 2 is the difference between talented and extraordinary.
Learn how to delegate.
I’ve written before about how hard it is to delegate within group projects and student organizations. But at our last meeting for WISE I managed to delegate everything possible. Seriously. I was so happy! How did I do it? I said, these are the other things I have to on my plate and I have to do less. I also explained that I’m going to graduate, and the need to prepare for that so that WISE will keep going when I’m gone. And other people stepped up to the mark and so far, they’re doing great.
But just in case, I have a “waiting for” list on Remember the Milk. So I don’t remember what everyone else is supposed to be doing, because it’s all written down – now I can just check it periodically and chase up as neccessary. Added bonus – if people don’t step up and complete things, I can make it public...
Eliminate ruthlessly.
Is everything you do important? Really?
Yes? I don’t believe you.
There’s always stuff you can get rid of. Try it. It’s liberating. A good place to start if you read a lot – if you start reading something that isn’t useful or interesting, stop.
It’s not enough to “be organized” – you need to have your stuff organized too.
What’s the point in knowing exactly what tasks you need to complete if you can’t find the stuff you need in order to complete them? Throw out as much as you can and organize the rest of it. A filing system if you have a lot of stuff, or just a couple of boxes or binders if you don’t. Digitizing stuff and organizing it into folders works well too.
Eliminate distractions.
Email checking is a huge distraction. One of my friends thinks my aversion to email is ridiculous and tells me he just processes his as it comes in and that it takes hardly any time at all. But it’s been shown that it takes an average of 25 minutes to return to task after a distraction. He might be special, but I’m not. I check my email only between tasks, and have disabled the alerts. If I’m really absorbed in something, I can go several hours without checking it. Same for Twitter, Facebook etc. Although I have notifications on my iPhone, I don’t tend to notice them so they don’t distract me.
Wisdom 2.0 (Amazon) is full of tips on how to manage digital distractions.
Set aside time for things that you want to do.
If there’s something you’re passionate about, find time to work at it. The grind of doing stuff constantly that doesn’t inspire will kill your motivation.
Just start. The rest will follow.
This encompasses so many things.
So much time management advice says start the day with your hardest task. There’s a saying, something like, “Start the day by eating a live frog. Then the day can only get better.” It’s true.
Set a manageable amount of stuff to achieve in a day.
With big tasks it can be hard to know where to start, so break them down into manageable steps. Then your thinking has already done, so you can just get on with doing the task.
If you want to go to the gym, just make yourself get dressed and go rather than mandate what you do when you get there.
Covey takes this to the fullest extent, by suggesting you visualize what you’d like people to say at your funeral. You might find that helpful. But even if that seems like a bit much, determining what our high levels goals are can be helpful. Once they’re defined, we need to check-in periodically to ensure we’re making progress on these goals. I did this on my Planning 2010 post. It’s helpful to have them written down as a reference, so that if I’m feeling low on motivation because of the low-level nature of tasks that fill my days, I can go and remind myself of what my important goals are, and see if what I’m doing will help me meet them. If not, why am I doing it? It should be eliminated ruthlessly, as discussed above.
Summary
As I try and incorporate these things into my life, and live by them, I’m seeing the difference. But it’s tough. I struggle particularly with eliminating, and starting the day by eating a live frog. But I see them making a difference, so I hope you find this helpful. If there’s anything else you’ve got from these kind of books, resources for time management, or tips, please leave them in the comments!
Go x-country skiing – wiped out several times and had to be hauled off the ground… but Treena assured me I didn’t suck too badly!
Make a start on giant pile of papers – would have liked to have made bigger inroads, but made a start at least.
Investigate potential courses for this semester – narrowed it down to a choice of two.
WISE meeting – really happy, other people took on lots of stuff and are taking responsibility for our upcoming events.
Meet with supervisor – came up with a road-map of what should happen this semester
Go kickboxing– kinda hilarious, trainer came up behind me to say hello whilst I was doing snap kicks, I screamed and fell over! Reaction time still sharp, need to work on reaction itself, though.
Sort out transport situation – bought a car!
Also:
Meeting RE coordinator position, have a presentation to work on for some Science teachers and a programming workshop for 16/17 year olds to write a proposal for.
Conference call with CU:WISE and IBM, we have something really great planned for the end of this month, and WISE’s funding woes are about to be stemmed – yay!
Completed my seminar requirement at uOttawa, just 3 more at Carleton to go (yay! I hate seminar).
Managed not to work after dinner, apart from tonight. Although I didn’t eat dinner so maybe it doesn’t count? 🙂
All in all it’s been a pretty good week, mostly running around sorting stuff out rather than achieving stuff, but I guess that’s typical for the first week back. The bad news has been that my scholarship is being reduced, which I’m a bit upset about, but I have a TA at least. And after trying for ages to get hold of SASS so to organize a talk on Time Management we’ve had to give up, as they never seem to be there. I feel this renders them unqualified to talk about time management, but maybe I’m just annoyed about how much time we’ve spent trying to arrange this to no avail!
For next week:
Exchange drivers license for Ontario one.
Sort out insurance.
Collect car.
Finish incorporating papers into thesis.
Embed applets.
Decide which course to take.
Go kickboxing twice.
Fill out forms for ski instructor job.
Schedule another Processing workshop.
Find replacement for SASS.
Deal with medical insurance.
Code more on installation, finish data-structures if possible.
This week I had no goals! It’s been a nice break and a good time to move my weekly reviews to Fridays rather than Mondays. So not a huge amount got done:
I saw in 2009 with my boyfriend. It was just the two of us. We were just moving in together “officially” (yes, I had been in Canada a really short amount of time for that to happen – long story) and we were sorting out the apartment. We drank some champagne and went swimming. It was nice.
Fast forward a year – last night we threw a huge party, over 40 people came. When it turned midnight I was jumping up and down on the roof with a big group of people. It was awesome.
A lot can change in a year. At the start of 2009 I was, in many ways, going back to the beginning – the two girls I’d been spending time with had left Ottawa. I didn’t really know that many other people – perhaps a result of taking three courses and working, and falling in love.
I didn’t know a bunch of people at last night’s party before they came. Those I did know, the vast majority I met in the last year. I’m sure with this is a sign of more great people entering my life in 2010. I’m excited about it.
What did I Achieve in 2009?
2009 was quite a year for me, personally it was the year I settled in and felt at home in Canada. It’s brought a ton of great people into my life. I’m very thankful for that. I also:
Worked in Shanghai
Had a curriculum I developed taught across the US and in China
Figured out what I’m researching, and did the bulk of the work for my first paper (to be submitted in January, hopefully)
Had something I made go viral (over 100 tweets) – with my conversation networks!
Stretched myself by TA-ing in French
Gave the Holiday Science Lecture
Started using Twitter and blogging, finally built my website (now I typically get over 200 hits a week – this is awesome!)
Became President of WISE, and was part of the team that got it moving
Has 6 posts featured on Brazen Careerist
Went to Japan, Berlin and Boston
Started going to tech events and meeting new people outside university
Ran introductory Java and Processing Workshops in Wave (more to come in the new year)
Planning 2010
I don’t really go with resolutions. I think clearly defining goals and planning to meet them is more effective. So I’ve drawn up some goals that I’d like to achieve this year and defined some of the steps that I think will help me meet them.
Goals
Get a Great Job
Get an appointment at the careers service to go over my CV
Send it out to tech people I know and respect and ask for feedback
Ask people I’ve worked with to recommend me on LinkedIn (if they’re comfortable with that)
Ask people for recommendations for companies to apply to, and referrals where possible (already started on this)
Get a Paper Published
Meet with supervisors to talk about what I have so far
Incorporate suggestions
Submit paper, and hope it gets accepted
Graduate
Determine how much more work I need to do.
Do it.
Create More Stuff
Get together with other people, Processing Jam next week is a good start
Make time for the things that are would-like-to rather than must do.
Be in Better Shape
Go back to kickboxing
Work up to 3 times a week
Organize transport, and take ski instructor job
Cross-country ski
On days I haven’t exercised, force myself to put on my swimsuit and walk to the pool before I go to bed (inspired by this post by Penelope Trunk)
Be More Balanced
End my week on Friday, so I don’t frantically try and complete things over the weekend.
Ski at least one day at the weekend (during the season)
No working after dinner, use that time to stay current (blogs, twitter), exercise, play wii fit, spend time with friends, or relax.
Make More Time for my Boyfriend
Regular date night
Watch movies that he wants to see
Hug him more
Random Aspirations
Be More Awesome
Write an e-book
Go somewhere new
Do things that scare me (previous things – TA-ing in French, Holiday Science Lecture, moving to Canada)
Do something awesome (previous things – working in Shanghai, moving to Canada, qualifing as ski instructor, training in martial arts in China)
I’ve been offered several great opportunities lately, and because of where I am in life (finishing up grad school, building my CV to find a job in the next 6 months or so) I plan on taking all of them.
My boyfriend and some of my friends call me a workoholic. I’m OK with that – I’m a workoholic, because I love what I do. I’m just aware that I need to manage my enthusiasm so that it doesn’t damage my relationships. And I need to get better at making time for myself.
At a coffee shop, after my lecture, my friend Dwayne says, “I hope you don’t burn yourself out”. Pet hobo says, “This is Cate burnt out! Didn’t you realize?”
I had, it’s true, been feeling slightly at the end of my rope, and even talking about taking some time off, which is not like me. After the second presentation was over, I was shaking slightly and completely spaced out. But after I’d drank some tea, and eaten some dinner I ended up in my office with 15 minutes to kill. And decided it was a great time to clear out my desk.
The next day, I tried to lie in but I just had loads of ideas and was really motivated to do stuff. So I got up, and did stuff. I have had a fairly productive week, and my email is – finally – all processed and dealt with.
Maybe I wasn’t burnt out, I was just scared. Or maybe I was, but I don’t need to relax – I just need to achieve a big goal.
I think, though, that the real thing I need to keep me happy is the days where I get to do whatever I’m inspired to do. Constantly working on a big project because a deadline is looming and realizing that it’s been weeks since I sat down and said, “what’s inspiring me today?” is the real problem. This means:
Starting things earlier (when I’m choosing to do them).
Spreading big project deadlines out as far apart as possible.
Setting aside time to “be inspired”.
For me, there’s a fine line between being “burnt out” and invigorated. Which I think means I’m not burnt out so much as uninspired. A much easier thing to work on.
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