30-Day Trial

Idea is alive

It was some time I was not writing here - over 20 days and it seems an eternity. Well - I was quite busy, and other more important projects take over, but I’m back to my normal schedule.

On my being more healthy front I have started new challenge. It is not exactly good topic for 30 day trial, but I will tell You what I’m talking about. On Andrew’s site I have noticed this banner:

What is this about? As You can read on this site:

If you’re serious about increasing your strength, follow this six week training program and you’ll soon be on your way to completing 100 consecutive push ups!

So, I decided to give it a try. I have finished week 1 and I’m thrilled to start week 2 :) This is good program - it sets goal, gives You training instructions and after first week I think it is perfectly doable to finish it.

My new 30 day trial

As I wrote in last post this time I want to address my lack of being organized. Maybe it is not so bad, but I would feel better if I could organize my work a bit more. I was trying GTD and other productivity schema, but I have not found (yet) my perfect match.

Now I will try to use daily/weekly TODO list to keep myself more on track. Now few more details how I plan to do.

First - no computer to mange those lists - I’m using simple notebook and pencil. On the week beginning I will prepare list of goals for incoming week. On each evening I will prepare list for next day. All tasks should be doable in given time - so this is not infinite ToDo list with all ideas which I may consider in future. For such ideas I have separate file :)

What is important? Goals should be precise and not too generic - implement one well defined feature for customer, write post on blog, etc. This is method for splitting larger projects into smaller chunks of work and keeping me focused on what is really important to get things done. I will keep this list for my freelance gigs, maybe I will expand it to other areas of my life if this system will work for me.

I think this is simple and quite popular system. But I add one more thing to it ToStop list. For each week I will analyze what was my biggest time sink last week and prepare list things I should avoid. Like addictive casual game or reading blogs…

Metrics
I need some good metrics whether I go with my system for my 30 day trial. I will count day a successful one when:

• I manage to work on daily goals - it is OK not to finish them if there was good reason - feature turned out not so simple, task was depend on third person work, etc
• I avoid ToStop pitfalls
• I find time at the end of day to prepare list for next day

I was trying and tweaking this system last two weeks and I think it has some potential for me. The key point is it keep me focused on what I need to do and keep me alter on those little things which can eat time in front of computer.