One thing (maybe two)

30. April 2013 · 2 comments · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , ,

As the end of the year approaches, I’m realizing a) how much I have left to do; and b) how much I want to accomplish this summer.  It feels a little overwhelming, so I need a plan to help me focus and feel like I’m making progress without getting stressed out.  On the way home, I came up with a plan.  Every day after school, I’m going to one home thing and one work thing.  Each night I’m going to decide what the things are, so I don’t come home and go, soooo what should I do and then three hours of blog reading goes by.  And here, to keep myself honest, I’m fleshing out what I have to do and posted in the sidebar is my list of things.  I love public accountability!!

The house has descended into a bit of chaos and with Geeky Boy graduating in just a few weeks, we need to get back on top of things.  I’ve asked the whole family to subscribe to the one thing concept as well, so I think that will work out.  Today, I tackled the kitchen.  The kids have slacked a little on keeping up with it, so I just dove in today and made that my one thing.

Work stuff is slightly more complicated.  For what I’m doing at home, I’m mostly focusing on planning for next year.  This year’s remaining work is going to get done during the school day.  I’m trying to be more explicit about my curriculum for both CS I and II, so I’m expanding my existing Google docs, and I’m going to build out some things in a course management system.  I’m trying to basically create a textbook for CS I, thus the Google docs.  I’m also revamping my MS curriculum.  I’m still thinking through what I want to do, but I have a lot of ideas, including adding more hands on, working with things stuff, and some blended learning stuff–which I’m *very* excited about.  Also I have to prep for my new Physical Computing class, which is going to require some learning on my part.

Yes, that’s a lot. But I do think it’s doable. I could see getting most of the CS I stuff done before the end of the school year since it’s basically tweaking what I already have. And since my MS classes only meet a couple of times a week for 10 weeks, there’s not that much material. The physical computing class involves my crazy gps cat tracking idea.  I’m too excited about that one for my own good.

Cleaning the digital cobwebs

06. January 2011 · 4 comments · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , , , ,

Regular readers of this blog know that I’ve gradually retreated from the kind of gung-ho online enthusiasm I had previously engaged in.  I still find much of value online, but I find myself either easily overwhelmed in spaces like Twitter or Facebook, and now, Quora, or not stimulated enough by blogs and other longer form digital media.  When I started considering a move to K-12, I expanded the number of K-12 oriented blogs and Twitter users I followed and I gradually reduced the number of Higher Ed media I follow.  I no longer read IHE or the Chronicle, and I’ve dropped many Higher Ed bloggers who write primarily about their lives as faculty and complain about various issues in Higher Ed.  I’m no longer interested (sorry folks).  There are a handful of people in that category that are interesting enough writers to keep me reading or write on a variety of different topics.

But there’s still some culling I need to do, and I’m going to look seriously at the Twitter and Facebook friends I have.  The benefit of Facebook, for me, is keeping up with far-flung high school, college, and graduate school friends, many of whose lives I’m interested in not just for personal reasons but for professional ones.  Amazingly, I have many friends involved in technology even when they started out as poets or history majors.  But I don’t need 350 people.  My feed gets clogged really quickly.

Twitter offers a lot of interesting ideas and links, but there, too, I have too many people I’m following.  Now that I know what I really benefit from the most, I can eliminate the people who post things of little value to me.  I do like to be diverse in the kinds of people I follow, but I don’t want to have to cull through tons of unimportant or uninteresting tweets to find the good stuff.

I think a lot of this, too, comes from having less time.  I have 15-20 minutes increments where I can pop in and check my reader or Twitter.  I’m always looking for things that I can use in my own teaching as well as things I can share with my teachers.  I can’t waste the limited time I have.

I’m also trying to streamline many of my online practices.  The reason I liked delicious so much was that I had an easy way, via my browser, to save a link and then I had an RSS feed going to a page I curate for my teachers and the links also went to Twitter.   Some of that was, of course, for self-promotional purposes, back when I was trying to be a consultant, but now it’s so I can provide information to my colleagues quickly and easily.  I looked around the other day for an alternative to delicious and frankly, there isn’t anything I want to use.  Delicious is clean and easy, so until I get the word that it’s going to go down completely, I’m sticking with it.

But other accounts, I’m getting rid of.  I used to join every new Web 2.0 site that came down the pike.  Now, I wait to see if it’s worth it. 

Clearly, I’m keeping the blog, even if I read fewer blogs than before.  Unlike Twitter and Facebook, which have become like giant parties where half the people are drunk and half the people are people I don’t know, the blog feels like a quiet dinner party I’m hosting at my house where friends I’ve invited are here and a few random folks drop by to say hello.  I need that intimate feel more than ever now.  So here I go, off to reduce my connections, maybe down to the Dunbar number.

On Schedules and Projects

21. September 2009 · Write a comment · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , ,

Last week, Laura at 11D had a minor identity breakdown. Vast stretches of time lay before her with no clear path of what she was supposed to fill them with. I can totally relate.

So, I have a business and I do want that to possibly be successful. Just this morning, I came up with a potential project that might work well for it. For a while there, I was spending time on something to do with the business every day. Now, though, it’s gone to the back burner. With this new idea, it might move back up again.

In addition to the business, however, I’m also working on a book project, something I started years ago, but which I’m hauling back out again. I’ve pretty much thrown out what I started with except the core of an idea and have been working away at it every day for the last two weeks. I’ve spent at least an hour every day on it and sometimes two. I was feeling bad about this lack of productivity. Shouldn’t I work for 4 hours, 6 hours? So I Googled for information about the writing habits of famous authors. It’s all over the map. Some authors go for a word count, some work in a certain amount of time (anywhere from just minutes to all day, with the average probably 2-3 hours). It kind of gave me the idea to go with my gut, and my gut says I’m doing okay, though I should probably aim for at least three hours. And yes, you can laugh at me for trying to compare my work habits to people like Stephen King and Dan Brown. Dan Brown writes all the time, even on holidays. If my book gets made into a movie, maybe I’ll do that too, but for now, no way.

And then there’s the walking piece. I’m up to walking 3 miles a day, which takes about 1.5 hours. I’m walking mid-afternoon, which is a good time, both for my schedule, and for the weather, as it’s usually quite warm and pleasant by then. I have to be back by 4 since that’s when child number one gets home.

In theory I could put in another hour of work of some kind after that, but that would put me, believe it or not, over an 8-hour day.

If the business picks up, what will likely go is housework, which has got to be the most boring thing ever invented, but at the same time seems more pressing than anything else and its neglect gets noticed more than anything else.

So I’ve settled into a routine that gives my days a shape and a purpose that I’m happy with for now. The nice thing is that it can shift as necessary, though I must admit, that as it does, I can feel the identity shifting with it. Funny how that works.

Please consider donating to my efforts in the Susan G. Komen 3-Day Walk for the Cure

WoW Wednesday: Learning Time Management

09. September 2009 · Write a comment · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , , ,

This is actually not about managing time in terms of managing play time, but about managing time within the game. When your WoW time is limited, you have to make decisions about what to spend time doing. There are literally thousands of things one could do in game: quests, dungeons, raids, achievements, gathering materials and crafting things from those materials. All those things take time but have certain rewards.

I now have 3 characters to play with. The one at the left is my main character, the one who’s at the top of her game (though she can always use more gear). Her skills are maxed out. Many of her faction reps are maxed out. With the exception of one top-level raid, she can pretty much do whatever she wants. What I’ve been doing with her lately is simply running her through a few dailies. When a good dungeon run opportunity crops up and I have the time, I will run that as well, since the rewards are tokens for good gear. On any given day, I can spend less than an hour on her and she won’t really suffer much if I don’t play her at all.

My other max level character is Zamar, who I just moved from another server and who has such bad gear that what she can do is limited. She needs to run dungeons, but she’s not geared enough for some of them. She needs faction rep to obtain gear and that requires quests (some daily, some long series of quests), which can be quite time consuming. And then I have another low-level character that obviously needs a lot of work. So, if I only have an hour or two to play, I have to prioritize what I do, especially with these lower level characters. This occurred to me the other day as I was standing in the middle of a city, trying to decide which direction to go. And then, I thought, hmm, this is a dilemma most people have in real life. How can this transfer?

When I log into WoW, sometimes of course, I’m just planning to goof around. I play as a respite from work. But sometimes, I have goals, just like I do in my work. I go through a series of questions as I try to determine what to do. And I think this series of decisions might be a good thought process for any decision. So, here it is:

1. What is most important for this character right now? What is he/she most lacking?
2. If the character is not lacking anything, what is a good reward for him/her right now?
3. What task will get the character closer to the need/reward?
4. How much time will that task take?
5. If the task time > allowed game time, what is the next priority or can a part of the task be completed in the allotted time? (Then jump to 4).
6. If the task time < allowed game time, go do task.

This is pretty much the same decision tree I use in real life. I often have a list of priorities and I simply decide which one gives me the most bang for my buck in the time I have at hand. The hardest decision is the first one, deciding what’s most important. In the game, it doesn’t much matter. In life, there can be some unpleasant consequences. For example, if I were to prioritize gameplay . . . .

Please consider donating to my efforts in the Susan G. Komen 3-Day Walk for the Cure

Ignoring time

10. August 2009 · Write a comment · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , , ,

I really appreciated seeing this post this morning about not focusing so much on the clock. I have a real tendency to do this, scheduling every minute of every day. Today, for example, Geeky Boy and I had to go to the high school to rework his schedule, so I started my planning from there. I decided I would go to the high school at 10, followed by a trip to the grocery store, lunch, cleaning, and then a trip to the pool, exercising either there or when I got home. I planned free time in the hour before dinner, dinner, and then just open time. Sounds oppressive, doesn’t it? The other thing that happened was that I didn’t wake early enough so a few things I wanted to get done on a writing project didn’t happen until just now. And, though I should be cleaning, that’s not happening now because I wanted to post this and read a few other blogs, which is not quite leisure, not quite work. So, you see, my schedule is easily disrupted and then I feel bad about not getting things done, etc. Bleh.

Jonathan Mead (author of the above post) echoes this sentiment:

Trying to constantly manage and monitor my time has only led me to greater anxiety, and always feeling like I’ve not “done enough.” I’m always thinking about how I could have “spent that time more wisely.” But the purpose of life is to enjoy it, is it not? So can’t we perform highly without the anxiety of counting every minute?

He makes a lot of good recommendations for being productive without feeling pressed for time. My favorite is having a theme for the month. Although I didn’t quite consciously think about it, my theme for this month is about getting organized and eliminating clutter. I wanted to be prepared for the new school year with a house that’s more streamlined and with everything in its rightful place. I think the idea is that, while I might schedule time for cleaning, if that’s the theme, then when I have the time and motivation during each day, I can tackle a cleaning project.

Next month, I’m going to tackle exercise, something I’ve struggled with forever. I really hate structured exercise–going to the gym, being in an exercise class (except for yoga; I like yoga classes)–but it’s not like I’m a total lump. I don’t mind walking instead of driving places. I’ll play soccer or tennis with the kids. I like gardening. Generally, moving around on occasion, even every day, is not something I’m opposed to. But it’s extremely easy for me to make excuses. It’s too hot, too cold, too wet. I have this that or the other that I need to do. I’d rather read, play games, watch tv. You know the drill. So I’m going to make some effort now, but really focus next month on moving at least a little every day.

The exercise thing is partly why I’m not as fond of Mead’s advice to follow your rhythms. That’s easy enough for me to do with intellectual activity, but inertia keeps me from doing physical things that I find unpleasant. And that’s where I think a schedule can help. And I suspect some people find the same is true of other kinds of work. Certainly people can schedule those activities for times when they know they’re more motivated, but they might have to semi force themselves to at least getting started.

I’m trying, then, to find a good flow for myself where I feel productive, but don’t feel anxious. Easier said than done, but I’m giving it a whirl.

Please consider donating to my efforts in the Susan G. Komen 3-Day Walk for the Cure

Consistency or lack thereof

07. August 2009 · Write a comment · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , ,

I like consistency. I like having a routine and a plan for the day, for the week, etc. I usually deliberately put variety into the routine, but knowing that I do x from 8-9 and then y from 9-10 works really well for me. Sadly, the summer has not been the least bit consistent or routine. In some ways, of course, that’s a good thing. Playing things by ear can be fun and opportunities can arise that wouldn’t otherwise. But all those things I wanted to do this summer, well, they didn’t get done. It’s not that I didn’t do anything, but I didn’t do all that I wanted. I poked at things a bit. I had a few projects and presentations here and there, but nothing *big* got done.

I’m trying to decide if I’m rationalizing or if it’s just really hard for me to be productive when the schedule gets out of whack. For instance, this week, we were away for the first couple of days and that just messed things up for me for the rest of the week. For the last three weeks, we’ve had this weird violin lesson schedule that had us doing something different every day. I can’t get into a groove. If a schedule is shot, rather than try to pick up the pieces, I just say, oh well, guess I’ll spend the day reading blogs or playing WoW.

Plus, there’s the kid interruptions. Some of these come from the kids–i.e., they ask if they can go to the neighbor’s or if it’s okay to have ice cream. Some of these are from me–i.e., I tell them they need to spend some time reading or playing outside, etc. And there’s the job of feeding them. And these seem to happen every hour or so. In fact, just now, I got asked if they could play on the Playstation. Sigh.

I started doing some seriously deep cleaning and clutter removal, but that’s now at a snail’s pace. I get to a stopping point and then it’s days before I get back to it and I’m almost back where I started by the time I start again. And exercise? Well, the kids and I did some things together, but that’s really fallen by the wayside. We leave for another trip in a couple of weeks, which is going to throw things into disarray once again.

My senior year in college, I stacked all of my classes on Tuesday and Thursday and took on a waitressing job. Plus I was applying to grad schools, was running the Literary Arts Festival and serving as an officer in my sorority. Not to mention, dating and generally having a reasonable social life. I was never more productive. I worked in the early evenings, so I spent my time before work completing assignments and working on grad school applications. By the time I was off work, I was free. I think I just need a fairly full schedule to make things work for me. Having all this time yawning before me is difficult to manage. I have had no problem earlier in the summer filling that time (in part because I had deadlines then), but now, with 4 weeks to go before school begins, I’m floundering around.

I think that’s mostly okay. This is the first time in about 10 years the kids have had me to themselves and have themselves had this kind of unstructured time. We don’t know what next summer will bring. It may be just like this or it may be filled with camp and work and a hard core schedule. So while I might lament the lack of productivity, I know that I can always get back to it when school starts, but the kids will only be around for so long.

Please consider donating to my efforts in the Susan G. Komen 3-Day Walk for the Cure

The opposite of do more with less: just do less

13. January 2009 · Write a comment · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , , ,

This post this morning made me feel much better about my lack of energy yesterday. One of the things I’m actually focused on is doing less. Of coming back to a place of real balance. I had taken to heart the common corporate (and educational institution) mantra of “Do more with less.” I’m sure that mantra is even more prevalent today as companies cut jobs or ask workers to take pay cuts or forgo raises. I personally found that mentality very stressful and I bet a lot of other people do too. And part of my distress yesterday was that I found myself feeling like I needed to do more in order to be successful. But I just didn’t have the energy for it and so I thought I was being lazy and then beat myself up. The spirals of doubt we get ourselves into!

The other blog I’ve been following that brings me out of those spirals is The Happiness Project, now also on Slate. As Gretchen says in her first post for Slate,

I realized with a jolt that I never thought about happiness, or whether I was happy, or what I could do to be happier. . . . Some people think that wanting to be happier is a selfish, self-absorbed goal—but I disagree. Robert Louis Stevenson got it right: “There is no duty we so much underrate as the duty of being happy,” he wrote. Research shows that happy people are more altruistic, more productive, more helpful, more likeable, more creative, more resilient, more interested in the problems of others, friendlier, and healthier. Happy people make better friends, colleagues, and citizens.

Like the “Do More with Less” mantra, society tends to value people who are “productive” or at least look that way. Those focusing on their own personal happiness are viewed as suspect. But I’m with Gretchen, being happy is a good thing for everyone, not just the person who is striving for it.

Please consider donating to my efforts in the Susan G. Komen 3-Day Walk for the Cure

Post Vacation Mondays are Rough

05. January 2009 · Write a comment · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: ,

We’re all dragging a little around here, having spent the last two weeks staying up late and sleeping in. For whatever reason, Mr. Geeky bounded out of bed and has been dealing with most of the usual morning routine for which I am extremely grateful.

Toward the end of the break, I started thinking about how I wanted to approach the new year in terms of “productivity.” I had read this article in Wired where Chris Hardwick tries three different productivity systems. I had only read GTD (of course), but had toyed with buying the other two, so I was grateful to Hardwick for having read them for me. I gleaned a few good tidbits from his experience.

1. Don’t check email in the morning. I had already decided not to check email in the morning. I used to check it, oh, about now, before I’d even finished coffee. This is a bad idea. Email contains stuff other people want you to do and when you’re working for yourself, you should put your own work first. Yes, some of it will be responses to your own queries and from people you really want to hear from, but it will all still be there a couple of hours from now. I managed to not check email at all over the last week. This was hard at first, but got really easy later on.

2. Take breaks completely away from your work. Go for a walk in the park. Knit. For god’s sake, get away from the computer! Hardwick actually did go for a walk and found it really did clear his head. I’m not sure he’ll keep up with it, but it’s something I definitely want to do. It will go nicely with my resolution to get outside more.

3. Think in terms of next actions. This is something I got from David Allen, of course, but Hardwick took this message to heart too. It is the one thing that I think is really useful in breaking down tasks. For example, one of my resolutions is to remodel a room in the house. Mr. Geeky and I would both like to work on the bathroom. The first thing we need to do is find potential contractors. So, I put on my list “Search Angie’s List for Contractor for Bathroom.” Simple. When I’m done with that, I’ll put, “Call so-and-so for bathroom consult and estimate.”

Although this didn’t come from Hardwick, another approach I’m taking is to only focus on three things in any given day. I’m also going to constantly review my tasks and goals to make sure things are balanced. I think in the past I’ve always put too much on my plate because that’s what most of these productivity plans encourage. Even the 4-day workweek book is about starting businesses and making enough money to hire people to do everything for you. The work may be frontloaded, but it’s still a lot of work. Now I have an eye to keep my days as open as possible instead of trying to be “productive.”

Please consider donating to my efforts in the Susan G. Komen 3-Day Walk for the Cure

Springpad Organization tool

25. November 2008 · Write a comment · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: ,

Via eHub, I found Springpad, a tool that organizes all kinds of things. I haven’t played with it much, but what appealed to me most was the Weekly Meal Planner and Household Budget. On the meal planner, you can add recipes to your day. Then you can generate a shopping list. The formatting is a little wonky–likely as a result of the original web page formatting, but it’s doable. I use an iPhone app that I love for my shopping lists, but I’m usually working from the Cooking Light site and/or a paper planning list. If I could connect those two apps together, that might be heaven.

There are all kinds of other springpads to track health and medical records, exercise plans, to-do lists and more. It’s beta, of course, but definitely looks like an interesting tool to try out for a while.

Please consider donating to my efforts in the Susan G. Komen 3-Day Walk for the Cure

Why Productivity is Bad (Sometimes)

06. November 2008 · Write a comment · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , , ,

A couple of months ago, I pretty much quit looking at my to-do list. I quit putting new things on it and I just kind of went with the flow. Although I still think the GTD system that I used has some really good points, I think there are a lot of aspects to the productivity mantra that leave me cold.

I’ve actually always liked organization systems. Ever since I was in about junior high, I started making lists and schedules. I guess I’ve never quite trusted my head when it came to remember what was on my plate. In college, I didn’t have much of a system, but did feel organized, especially the last year and a half when I was working two jobs and applying to grad schools. I planned a class schedule my last semester that put all my classes on Tues/Thur. I worked and/or wrote on the other days.

By grad school, I had very little to really organize. I had 3 classes and it was fairly easy to keep up with everything. When I moved into the corporate world and had a kid, suddenly there was a lot more to keep track of. So I followed the 7 Habits system. And that worked for a while and it was nice to think that things I was doing were “things that mattered” and “contributed to my life goals” but still I was just checking stuff off of list.

When I discovered the GTD system a few years ago, I liked it for its simplicity and its geekiness. I was able to use some technical tools to track my tasks and it was fun to keep tweaking the system. I credit GTD for helping me organize a conference and for helping me finish a Ph.D. while holding down a job and raising a couple of kids. It was really useful for breaking down big projects into smaller tasks and focusing on the next thing that needed to be done rather than being overwhelmed by the hugeness of the end goal. It’s also helpful for going through email and stuff that’s sitting in piles around my house. I can look at an email or pick up an object, ask myself “what is this?” and then figure out what needs to be done with it. Again, it holds back the feelings of being overwhelmed by forcing me to focus on one thing at a time.

But it started to make me feel like a cog in a machine of my own making. I began to just check things off the list and even reviewing at the end of a week, I just added more stuff to the list. And a lot of that stuff was stuff that was coming in from email and other outside sources. I had little opportunity to step back and look at the big picture. Even though David Allen’s books do talk about thinking at different levels during the review process, I think the system is mechanized to such a degree that it’s really hard just to not do anything. That time has to be scheduled just like any other. I started to feel guilty if I just wanted to read a book or take a bath or sit quietly with a cup of tea. I kept thinking, “Shouldn’t I be doing something right now?”

So I quit looking at lists. I quit making lists. Instead, every morning, I asked myself, “What do you want or need to do today?” I’d come up with a couple of things and I’d start working. Even though I’d started down this road while I still had a job, I hope to continue it and thensome now that I don’t go to an office every day at 9 a.m.

I think I will come back to some revised version of GTD eventually. There are still the nitpicky tasks that are better off on a list: forms to return to school, bills to pay, recycling to drop off. Right now, I have a purring cat in my lap and I’m watching the wind blow the leaves in the trees. I may not be productive at the moment, but I feel pretty good about it.

Please consider donating to my efforts in the Susan G. Komen 3-Day Walk for the Cure
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