Setting priorities

| emacs, weekly

For once, my random Emacs symbol is strangely apropos. There will
never be enough time in the day, and it’s easier for me to say no to
low-value tasks if I have other things to do. Here are my best-value
tasks over the next few days:

  • Prepare for the start of my new job by reflecting on what’s worked for me before and what hasn’t, and figure out what I want. If I can help my manager learn about my strengths and weaknesses, then he’ll be able to manage me more effectively.
  • Work on my book. I should be able to complete the Org section if I just sit down and write. The Planner section can follow a similar structure. It pays to complete a rough draft of the chapter as early as possible, because I can get more feedback from beta readers. I need to give myself permission to skip the parts that I _really_ want to include but for which the code needs to be written practically from scratch. My job is to show people interesting hacks, not fill in all the holes or fix all the bugs.
  • Connect with my family and catch up on stuff from last week.
  • Braindump what I learned from my chat with Ian Irving. Plenty of nuggets there, and sharing is the best way of thanking him for his time.
  • Do my weekly review. I feel uncomfortable if I don’t have time to reflect and share.
  • Build in some quiet time and some relationship time. I don’t want that to get lost in a long list of TODOs clamoring for my attention.

These are my essentials for this weekend. It’s like the way you manage money: plan for the important stuff first before you spend on luxuries. =)

Random Emacs symbol: schedule-day-remainder – Variable: The number of seconds remaining today.

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