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It depends on the circumstances and how you want to prioritize things. Generally I'll take on the 5 easiest tasks across all my 'active' projects.
by solomonb 2y ago
It depends on the circumstances and how you want to prioritize things. Generally I'll take on the 5 easiest tasks across all my 'active' projects.
- exe34 2y agothat makes a lot of sense. I've noticed myself, whenever I'm procrastinating and avoiding working on a project, it's because I don't actually know what the next step is. if I make figuring out the next few steps as a time-boxed task in itself, suddenly I don't procrastinate anymore, I just sit down and do it.
- solomonb 2y agoI think this gets back to what I said about being okay with bike-shedding. Researching and exploring the design space is a critical part of every project. Its okay to commit time to thinking, planning, and exploring. I feel that as engineers we generally react negatively to the idea of bike-shedding or "building cathedrals" but the reality is that there is always a bike-shed. The question we should be asking is not should we deliberate over the design of the project, but rather to what degree does this project (and consequently the business in paid situations) benefit from deliberation. In the case of personal projects, I am far more concerned with the process then the outcome and will allow myself to indulge in bike-shedding maximally.
- exe34 2y agoMy preference is to think deeply about it alone, and either take the results of that to the team or even come up with a very rough mockup/prototype and/or some working code for the bits that I initially have no idea how to implement (again, in a time-boxed manner)- and only then have a proper bike-shedding session. Otherwise I find so much time is wasted on tiny details that don't matter, and the overall picture still fails to emerge (aka a definitional bike-shedding session).