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The State of the Nea
Jan. 11th, 2014 03:25 pmTomorrow 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!
