The State of the Nea
Jan. 11th, 2014 03:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
neadodsTomorrow I'm going to be mailining Sherlock. And on Monday I can finally go back on tumblr again; I've been avoiding even the Night Vale-specific ones for fear of spoilers.
In my personal life, the agile/kanban thing is working REALLY well. Oh, I don't think I go a week without rejuggling what the next "sprint" will be, BUT I'm noticing some really great benefits:
1) This is fabulous for focus. Instead of thoughts of racing "you should x, you should y, you should z" I can tell myself "I should work on THIS sprint this week and then I can think about x, and then I'll think about y..."
2) By specifically stating "what will success look like/what do I need to achieve it" I've been able to clearly define what I need to do and how I need to go about it. For instance, instead of "clean up Christmas stuff" it was "I want to clean up the Christmas stuff so that everything is sorted together, easily accessible, and safe from cats. That would require... bins? Bins would work, but you don't consider them accessible. How else could they be sorted? Oh, look, see that unused barrister bookshelf? Is that long enough to hold rolls of paper? Yes? Where could it be put up?
... and so instead of having my Christmas stuff strewn all over a couple of floors, it was tidy, organized, and accessible with materials on hand in about 90 minutes.
3) Early success has made me determined to keep up the winning streak. This means that this week's sprint was a task I've been putting off and putting off and putting off, but yet I could still convince myself "look, it's just one week. One week and then it's all over and done. That's not so bad." And indeed, the job is done.
4) There's a built-in reward system for finishing the task early. Rather than look around for the next thing I "have" to do, I am using the rest of this week's sprint time to just relax. Read. Putter around online.
And the systems I'm bringing online are all combining to make some part of my life easier. Nicer. Less effort on my part. And that is REALLY encouraging that I can actually achieve my goal of reaching the point where I can focus most of my life energy on what I want to do, not what I have to clean up or clear out or organize.
If nothing else, I am getting a better balance in this young year. I've done a clinic shift and a Book Thing run and still had time to throw a party, attend a party, and get to this Sherlock shindig while still clearing up the clutter steadily, working on some professional goals, cleaning up my iTunes, creating my "if I'm hit by a bus" book, cleaning up my Christmas crap, and hanging shelves in the bathroom. Not a bad mix of activity and recreation in less than a fortnight!
In my personal life, the agile/kanban thing is working REALLY well. Oh, I don't think I go a week without rejuggling what the next "sprint" will be, BUT I'm noticing some really great benefits:
1) This is fabulous for focus. Instead of thoughts of racing "you should x, you should y, you should z" I can tell myself "I should work on THIS sprint this week and then I can think about x, and then I'll think about y..."
2) By specifically stating "what will success look like/what do I need to achieve it" I've been able to clearly define what I need to do and how I need to go about it. For instance, instead of "clean up Christmas stuff" it was "I want to clean up the Christmas stuff so that everything is sorted together, easily accessible, and safe from cats. That would require... bins? Bins would work, but you don't consider them accessible. How else could they be sorted? Oh, look, see that unused barrister bookshelf? Is that long enough to hold rolls of paper? Yes? Where could it be put up?
... and so instead of having my Christmas stuff strewn all over a couple of floors, it was tidy, organized, and accessible with materials on hand in about 90 minutes.
3) Early success has made me determined to keep up the winning streak. This means that this week's sprint was a task I've been putting off and putting off and putting off, but yet I could still convince myself "look, it's just one week. One week and then it's all over and done. That's not so bad." And indeed, the job is done.
4) There's a built-in reward system for finishing the task early. Rather than look around for the next thing I "have" to do, I am using the rest of this week's sprint time to just relax. Read. Putter around online.
And the systems I'm bringing online are all combining to make some part of my life easier. Nicer. Less effort on my part. And that is REALLY encouraging that I can actually achieve my goal of reaching the point where I can focus most of my life energy on what I want to do, not what I have to clean up or clear out or organize.
If nothing else, I am getting a better balance in this young year. I've done a clinic shift and a Book Thing run and still had time to throw a party, attend a party, and get to this Sherlock shindig while still clearing up the clutter steadily, working on some professional goals, cleaning up my iTunes, creating my "if I'm hit by a bus" book, cleaning up my Christmas crap, and hanging shelves in the bathroom. Not a bad mix of activity and recreation in less than a fortnight!
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2014-01-12 09:42 am (UTC)And an "if I'm hit by a bus" book also sounds like a good idea. Hubby barely wants to think about that stuff, but I have oodles of bank accounts and the like that will need to be dealt with. What sort of stuff are you putting in it?
no subject
Date: 2014-01-12 02:29 pm (UTC)Step 1: Slice out the year into a series of 1 to 3 week chunks, with the vast majority of them 2-week intervals. This was done in pencil along the "sunday" edge of a monday-to-sunday monthly calendar.
Step 2: List ALL of the big tasks to be done that year, but list them in manageable portions. (For instance, my bedroom is a superfund site, but the actual "clean bedroom" task is broken down into 5 goals: Clean dresser & top, clear off area of floor by dresser, clear off middle of floor, etc.) Guesstimate a time value to get the job done - i.e., 1-3 weeks.
Step 3: Plot out which tasks you will do in the next three sprints - but do it in pencil, because it's okay if things change. I'm not going to do painting during a polar vortex - I want to do some of the painting outside - but if I don't do that 3-week job in the upcoming 3-week slot, I'll do another 3-week job.
Step 4: Think of each task as having each of these components (this is the chart on the fridge)
PLANNING: What is the definition of "done"? What will you be able to do when a task is "done" right? For instance, it wasn't enough to put the christmas stuff in bins and say "done" - what I REALLY wanted was the stuff in the same place, visible, accessible, away from cats. So what I REALLY wanted was shelves or bins or something like that.
GATHER MATERIALS: Now that you know what you need to get it done, go get the stuff to do it.
PRELIMINARY WORK: What do you need to do before you can do the task? For instance, before painting, you need to remove wallpaper/sand and patch/etc.
TASK: Do the thing you've envisioned.
As for the "Hit By A Bus" book, it has everything (short of passwords, which will be elsewhere) allowing someone to step into my life and deal with me being out of commission. This includes:
- list of companies dealing with the house (cable, water, electric, oil)
- mortgage information
- car information, including where title is, who has been servicing, etc (everything needed to sell it)
- cell phone contract (so it can be cancelled or continued)
- List of people to be contacted
- prefilled paperwork to cancel each credit card - needs only death certificate and executor information filled in
- prefilled paperwork to cancel each magazine subscription
- vet information on cats for anyone who'd adopt them
- list of bank and stock accounts
- paperwork of extant loans (and "this is paid" paperwork for car loan)
- appraisal information on valuables
The idea is that the person who ends up taking care of business will be able to see in a glance what companies I have dealt with, what business/financial arrangements I have, what to do with the body, etc. There are pointers to the legal paperwork - the passport, the will, the car title.
With the passwords - which are being shared in a sealed envelope only with executors - anyone can step in and basically "be" me. Which is why the passwords, will, and Hit by a Bus book are being kept VERY separate!!!
no subject
Date: 2014-01-12 09:18 pm (UTC)I've never heard of a kanban chart before and when I get a chance I will google it. I'm struggling to accept adulthood (still, at 43) and there are tasks that I can't face doing (getting a will, refinancing mortgage etc). I need to find a way to overcome my own inertia and do them.