Scheduling, planning and follow-through. Some questions

Posted by Ken
May 19, 2014 at 05:58 AM

You have my sympathies, Jim. I have struggled with this issue for more years than I care to imagine. My work involves project management for a number of projects, and it seems that as the years have gone by, I spend less time actually working on what I would like to work on, and more time responding to e-mail and voicemail messages. One of the problems with this change in work habits is that I have slowly learned to become a “sprinter”, but at the expense of my “long distance” skills, and my work still has many long terms aspects. I also work in a cube farm, so privacy is very limited, and distractions are frequent. In short, I sometimes feel that I have the attention span of a gnat, and if I am not careful, I can get quite stressed out about the situation and find myself further unable to concentrate. Or worse yet, wishing that there was a software/hardware solution that would help me be more productive.

While I know that software is not the answer, and that really I need to rebuild my concentration habits, I do believe that for some people, the right software can help in the rebuilding process if only because it can instill some structure and framework. I have been struggling with an acute dose of this recently, and have felt a bit like a dog with a bone, because there are just too many things (short and long term, low and high priority) for me to effectively track on paper. Yes, the CRIMPing was a bit of a time investment, and I am not certain if it will fully pay off, but I had to do something, and trying to devote that time I spent CRIMPing into work time was just too stressful for my mind.

To make a long story short, I evaluated four programs, and have settled on two and a half (for now). I understand that the software is not going to solve many of my time management and concentration problems, but it just might help me to build some structure, and to effectively have a comprehensive look at what needs to get done, if only so I can decide what I can or cannot get done. It is frustrating to say this,but we can only do so much in a day, and unless you can readily and easily identify and eliminate big time vampires, you need to work with your manager to determine what is the top priority, and what can be pushed back (as was mentioned above).

And, FWIW, I find that a few minutes of meditation once or twice a day helps to clear my mind and reduce my stress level so I can better concentrate. If I am anxious about being behind schedule, I am even less effective. And when all else fails, I pull out a single piece of paper and write down the top tasks that are on my mind. Usually they are the most urgent, and a few 20-minute Pomodoro sessions allows me to concentrate on one or two of the more important ones.

Good luck,

—Ken

P.S. The two and a half programs that I chose were Toodledo, Asana and Trello in case anybody is interested.