{"id":1079,"date":"2012-09-12T10:19:04","date_gmt":"2012-09-12T17:19:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/?p=1079"},"modified":"2012-09-12T10:19:04","modified_gmt":"2012-09-12T17:19:04","slug":"the-deadline-dilemma","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/2012\/09\/the-deadline-dilemma\/","title":{"rendered":"The deadline dilemma"},"content":{"rendered":"

It hap\u00adpens every year \u2014 the slides are due for the XML<\/span> Sum\u00admer School, and some people have them done early, and oth\u00aders don\u2019t. Some\u00adtimes it\u2019s because Life Hap\u00adpens \u2014 fam\u00adily mem\u00adbers fall ill, bosses demand more hours, oth\u00ader people on whom you\u2019re depend\u00ading are late. Some\u00adtimes it\u2019s because you hit the log\u00adjam or just can\u00ad\u2019t get star\u00adted. (By which I mean me, not just you). The same dead\u00adline dilemma applies to oth\u00ader pro\u00adjects, of course; any task that takes more than 10 minutes, and some\u00adtimes even those, just Don\u2019t Get Done.<\/p>\n

Get\u00adting oth\u00ader stuff done first can be use\u00adful to clear the decks, as it were. Struc\u00adtured pro\u00adcras\u00adtin\u00ada\u00adtion<\/a> can be a good way to get oth\u00ader neces\u00adsary tasks com\u00adpleted in an effort to hold off the really import\u00adant, urgent, fright\u00aden\u00adingly loom\u00ading task. But even\u00adtu\u00adally you (by which I mean me) actu\u00adally do have to start work\u00ading on the pro\u00adject, have to find the motiv\u00ada\u00adtion from somewhere.<\/p>\n

A couple of years ago I dis\u00adcovered the Pomodoro tech\u00adnique<\/a>. When I remem\u00adber to use it, it solves the prob\u00adlem in a num\u00adber of ways.<\/p>\n

The prin\u00adciple of work for 20 minutes, then take a 5 minute break, repeat until done is simple. It means I can give myself a reward at the end of the 20 minutes (stand up, stretch, tidy up the desk, get a glass of water). I take notes on inter\u00adest\u00ading ideas or items that might side-track me, that I can get back to after the 20 minutes are up (or even later), rather than fol\u00adlow\u00ading them dur\u00ading the work time. And after 20 minutes of doing some\u00adthing on the pro\u00adject, the momentum has built up and I want to keep going, want to fin\u00adish what I\u2019m work\u00ading on. <\/p>\n

Nice side-effects \u2014 my office is tidi\u00ader (I often do that dur\u00ading the 5\u2011minute break), and I think my work is bet\u00adter because I haven\u2019t got side-tracked. Often which end of the ele\u00adphant you start with is less import\u00adant than get\u00adting star\u00adted \u2014 you can always start at anoth\u00ader end in the next work chunk. Mak\u00ading myself take a break for 5 minutes every 20 helps me pace myself. I stretch, stand up, breathe more deeply than when hunched over the com\u00adputer screen, and feel less tired at the end of the day. I often also have ideas dur\u00ading the 5\u2011minute break that help solve whatever issue I\u2019m work\u00ading on, or make it better.<\/p>\n

Unfuck Your Hab\u00adit\u00adat<\/a> uses the same prin\u00adciple \u2014 either 20 minutes on, 10 off (the 20\/10), or 45 minutes on and 15 off (45\/15), for clean\u00ading, study, or whatever needs to be done. The tagline that speaks to me the most? IT<\/span>\u2019S 20 MINUTES<\/span>, NOT<\/span> A LIFETIME<\/span> COMMITMENT<\/span>. (Their caps).<\/p>\n

Notes: I don\u2019t use the full pomodoro sys\u00adtem with review and I don\u2019t track inter\u00adrupts. Maybe I\u2019d get more bene\u00adfit if I did, but I don\u2019t feel the need.<\/p>\n

Tools: you can get by with a kit\u00adchen timer, but you need one that does both times (20\/5, 20\/10, or whatever com\u00adbin\u00ada\u00adtion). I use Xor\u00adTime<\/a> on Win\u00addows, Pomodoro Desktop<\/a> on the Mac (which appears to have been dis\u00adcon\u00adtin\u00adued), and Pomo\u00addroido<\/a> (minus all the lead\u00ader\u00adboard stuff) on Android. I turn off the tick\u00ading sound on all of them as I find it annoy\u00ading and distracting.<\/p>\n

Now I just have to remem\u00adber to use this tech\u00adnique more often. I wish I could use it in hours-long phone calls and meetings!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It hap\u00adpens every year \u2014 the slides are due for the XML<\/span> Sum\u00admer School, and some people have them done early, and oth\u00aders don\u2019t. Some\u00adtimes it\u2019s because Life Hap\u00adpens \u2014 fam\u00adily mem\u00adbers fall ill, bosses demand more hours, oth\u00ader people on whom you\u2019re depend\u00ading are late. Some\u00adtimes it\u2019s because you hit the log\u00adjam or just \u2026 Con\u00adtin\u00adue read\u00ading \u201cThe dead\u00adline dilemma\u201d<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wp_typography_post_enhancements_disabled":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1079","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1079","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1079"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1079\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1095,"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1079\/revisions\/1095"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1079"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1079"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1079"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}