Blessing or a Curse?
I think I've embraced the concept of project management perhaps a little too deeply. Perhaps bordering on psychosis.
I've been taking advantage of some weird limbo time that I get occasionally as I watch my students slave away at their final assignments. One of the things I use this time for is to make a plan for my time over the next six days. I have blogged about this before … my handmade, six-day planner.
(Aside: That was interesting, scrolling back over the past year of blog entries … hmm … more on that later …)
So, looking forward, I need to:
- finish marking a truckload of assignments and exams and projects
- finish a number of projects around the house
- prepare food / menus for the holiday season
- shop for food for the holiday season
- buy presents for people
This is in addition to all my regular stuff that I do. To me, this translates into making a LOT of lists, and thinking carefully about each one. So, I wrote down in my hand-made planner "make lists". I'm not kidding. I wrote on my list … make lists. I guess that makes the list I wrote it on the "meta-list" … or maybe I'm creating a list breakdown structure … an LBS, by any other name, would smell as sweet … see, I think I'm losing it …
8. December 2006 at 5:08 pm :
Have you heard of the book Getting Things Done? Best project management book evar!
8. December 2006 at 5:17 pm :
I can so relate to the insanity of lists upon lists. I usually keep them in my planner: daily, weekly, general lists. But lately I've been hauling so many books and crap around that I don't want the extra weight of the planner too. So I've been writing lists on post-its, scaps of paper, etc. and planning on adding them back to the planner later — except that is not a good idea because I keep misplacing. So I've been making a mental — and on it is 'find lists' and 'copy lists back to planner.'List-insanity!
9. December 2006 at 3:33 am :
I see emissions beat me to it with GTD. It seems he also blogged about it too! I mentioned in in my blog about Merlin Mann and GTD. I haven't jumped into GTD yet, but it is on my radar and I plan to listen to the book again when my mind is a little more clear. Merlin Mann now has the whole 8-podcast series available as a single download:43 Folders Podcast PageThis is a compilation of the eight podcast episodes of Productive Talk which ran on 43folders.com and davidco.com in the fall of 2006. (1h:26m) It's well worth a listen!
9. December 2006 at 9:10 am :
emissions and Cams – thanks for the tips on the reading and podcasting! (Love podcasts …) rogue – I wish my students made as valiant an attempt at organization as you are! Would you like to come teach them? :-)I really am a bit of a nutbar about this stuff. I was reminded recently by an ex of mine of a conversation I had with Yuri Rubinsky before brunch and after a tour of the then-recently opened SoftQuad offices right here on Spadina in Toronto. He showed us HoTMetaL … everything ran on those odd-looking Apples (this was 1985 but they were even odd-looking then). We were a rag-tag group of Brock University hangers-on, checking out the success of someone who had "gone before". Prior to this day, I had never heard of a mark-up language. I caught up with the fast-paced, ever chattering Yuri as the group was crossing a parking lot, heading to Toby's on Bloor for brunch. I asked, "It is about form and content, isn't it? What you are working on is about giving people options about how something is offered or presented, not what is offered, right?" He stopped and stared at me and said, kindly as I recall, "Yes, that is exactly it, except that if people have more options about the how, their imaginations will run wild about the what." He was right, bless him … behold … the Internet!My world shifted at that moment in that conversation with Yuri. It got divided into form and content. I see time management as being part of this. If I can figure out how to manage it, my options expand exponentially on what I can do with my time. Somehow, there is a link between reaching a comfort level with the management of time and being creative. I haven't quite figured out how to articulate this yet. The variable in all this is my level of self-discipline at any given moment in time … lol … as I sit here, blogging, with my first coffee, staring at all the stuff that needs to happen today. My point (and I do have one) with the whole form/content discussion is this: when I'm teaching project management, I'm focused 98% on form – the structure of managing time, milestones, priorities, sequences of tasks, predecessors, budgets, people. The content – are we talking about managing the creation of a buffet meal for 30, or a relational database? – is less relevant to me. In order to "see" this, students have to step back from the content of all their other courses and understand that they have some level of control over the FORM of their working and personal lives … this appears to be a very large leap for some who remain steadfastly buried in the details. I've come to realize that this is about temperment as much as skills, although I do think anyone can learn this if they are motivated to do so. So the "success" of my holiday time, for me, will be based partially on how well I manage all the varying priorities, events, deadlines. I get my jollies out of pulling stuff off that seems insurmountable. I don't know why Yuri popped into my head around this stuff – my ex was a good friend of Yuri's and is working on having him recognized as a Brock alumni, and I think this is fabulous. He was true genius. One of my few regrets in my life is not recognizing the opportunity I had, possibly right there in the parking lot, of clinging to this genius teddy-bear of a guy and learning all I possibly could from him. I bet he could have taught me a thing or two about time management. I wish the universe had been more generous in granting him more of it to work with – I think the world would have been a better place.
11. December 2006 at 11:21 am :
Have you ever seen this? http://www.diyplanner.com/I third the GTD thing too. I went to a David Allen seminar and it was great. Has really helped me stay on top of things.