Overcoming Overload?

Posted by Pavi
Mar 13, 2015 at 07:33 AM

Hi, I’d like to add my experience to this thread as I have been dealing the the same issues. Both work and family life have been stressful, and I’ve found it hard to focus and prioritize. However, I came up with methodology and software system that has been incredibly useful!

I should probably post about my method somewhere else, as it may apply more to researchers. But I wanted to share the time management application I use:

Watership Planner!

The reason this software is so important in my system is it allows me to plan my projects and tasks in a minimal amount of time, and then tells me what to do next. The auto-scheduling of time based on estimates and prioritization is simply fantastic. It makes you just flow along without using any excess energy on the “what to do now” issue. On the negative side, the price is now $220; however, additional years of upgrades are $49 I think and this needs not be purchased every year. Would I buy at that price? Absolutely, as I estimate that I get at least an extra 1 hour of productivity per day. With the whole of my “system”, I am probably double as efficient.

Just to highlight the key features I have incorporated into my workflow:
- Work strict hours, 7 am - 4 pm, 1 hour lunch/gym
- Block off 7-11 for core project work, schedule meetings, etc. only after this (if possible)
- Focus on one project at a time. Of course sometimes a second project must be addressed.
- Email in two 15 min recurring tasks per day, at 11 am and in the afternoon. Often it takes less time.
- Make a next day task list in the late afternoon, 15 min task but often it takes <5 min
*** Document all work using Zoot when doing it! This becomes very natural and saves huge volumes of time wondering what I did.
- At home, leave the phone and have family time

This system using Watership Planner (and Zoot) has been immensely rewarding. WP has a lot of advanced features I don’t use (ROI, measuring interruptions, etc.). I find that dumping out my tasks into projects and then scheduling the next week frees my mind from worrying about getting things done. I tried using Zoot to manage tasks, and that worked well. But the extra boost from WP actually scheduling them dynamically for me is great. Of course, you can change what you are working on very easily (just click the timer for another task). It took me a few days to get this system off the ground, but now things are going very smoothly.

Best, /Pavi