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My take on these. I'm curious what others think. 1. Work backwards from goals to milestones to tasks. I have no idea why more people don't do this. 2. Stop m
by dabent 15y ago
My take on these. I'm curious what others think.
1. Work backwards from goals to milestones to tasks.
I have no idea why more people don't do this.
2. Stop multi-tasking. No, seriously—stop.
See my response to #1
3. Be militant about eliminating distractions.
I'm not militant enough. Hence this post.
4. Schedule your email.
I need to try that. Setting a filter to only alert when my boss emails me has helped in the past. Other emails get answered between 60-90 minute tasks.
5. Use the phone.
I despise the phone. Email conversations provide a written record of the exchange and allow me to cut/paste responses if it's something for work (like a URL or code snippet). That said, I will force myself to pick up the handset.
6. Work on your own agenda.
My new job and situation allow for a lot more of this. It's life changing.
7. Work in 60 to 90 minute intervals.
I do try to do this. It works very well, although I usually don't make it to 90 minutes, just 60 minutes of just coding goes a long way. Do that a few times in a day (with meetings and such filling the balance of the day) and you're getting somewhere.
- pvarangot 15y ago> 5. Use the phone. I despise the phone. Email conversations provide > a written record of the exchange and allow me to cut/paste responses > if it's something for work (like a URL or code snippet). That said, > I will force myself to pick up the handset. My problem with e-mail, texting, and all other asynchronous means of communication, is that they encourage multitasking. If I'm discussing something on an asynchronous medium I'm always tempted to poll on the discussion while doing something else. When something gets important enough I usually try to force myself and the other party into a synchronous medium of communication, or if I can't, try to completely ignore the issue until all people involved have enough time to proactively solve it. That being said, sometimes the written record really helps, or the other party involved in a discussion or planing of something can't cope with their own anxiety, and the whole planning of something e-mails into hell... but well, I try hard enough to avoid it.
- freehunter 15y agoMy solution for that is a quick email saying "this is interesting... let me think about it and I'll reply a little later". It shows people that the discussion is not over yet, but has minimal impact on your task at hand. For things that are only sent to me, this is not required, but it works well for me when things are CC'd all around the department.
- _delirium 15y agoI have sort of the opposite view: asynchronous modes of communication promote single-tasking by letting me batch up replies at my convenience (I can spend an hour answering 7 different people), whereas synchronous modes of communication promote multitasking/fragmentation by making it hard to batch them (and in the worst case, ringing RIGHT NOW demanding I interrupt what I'm doing and answer).
- pvarangot 15y agoIt's not the opposite view if those 7 people are sort of like the same task. Then you are not multitasking. Normally stuff I discuss on e-mail has nothing to do with what I have to code, that at the same time has nothing to do with what I get text messages about, and even that has no point of comparison to what I get talked on IM about. Maybe my whole life is hell... but I hope i'm getting my point through.
- jfoutz 15y agowrt #5, For bigger conversations, after the conversation i send an email summing up what i think is expected of me and what i expect of others. It's really helpful for managing that kind of thing.
- cbo 15y agoI love email and IM and all that of the reasons you stated, but... Picking up the phone gets all of the necessary information to both parties involved several orders of magnitude faster than email and IM.