January 29, 2011

Weekly review: Week ending January 28, 2011

January 29, 2011 - Categories: weekly

I’m typing this weekly review outside an empty meeting room at the Walt Disney World Dolphin Hotel, where Lotusphere will be held this year. It’s definitely conference season.

I’d been taking a lower-key approach to presenting this year, so I don’t have too many conference commitments planned. I had fun sketching pre-conference networking tips for ITSC using index cards.

Definitely an early bed time tonight. Plenty of work this week.

Plans for last week

  • Work
    • [X] Finish deliverables for Project M
    • [X] Get my Lotusphere plans together
    • [X] Prepare Lotusphere BoF resources on working with the Lotus Connections API
    • [X] Finish pre-conference networking tips slides
    • Helped build Drupal site for internal coordination of marketing materials for AIS Canada – yay for being able to quickly build things using Drupal!
    • Talked to two groups about Idea Labs
    • Booked travel arrangements for Lotusphere
  • Relationships
    • [X] Connect with coworkers
    • [X] Be extra-wonderful to W- (taking off for a week)
    • Accepted accommodation plans for Kathy and John’s wedding in the Netherlands
  • Life
    • [X] Survive even busier week
    • [-] Book a massage for some time after I get back from Lotusphere?
    • Connected with Toronto newcomer from Philippines

Plans for next week

  • Work
    • [X] Help at Lotusphere as a room monitor
    • [X] Potentially host a BoF on the Connections API
    • [X] Learn from Lotusphere presentations (content and technique)
  • Relationships
    • [X] Connect with IBMers, partners, and clients at Lotusphere
  • Life
    • [X] Do time analysis of conference time
      • Can I still get ~8 hours of sleep a day?
      • What’s exercise like?
    • [X] Eat salads. See if I can order half-portions.

Time analysis

Category Hours Last week Notes
Sleep 55.3 61.6 7.8 hours of sleep a day
Work 40.4 46.4 Some breathing time between projects
Social 12.8 10.1
Drawing 12.8 Maybe half of this counts as work
Routines – general 8.7 13.9
Routines – cooking 3.7 1.6
Routines – tidying 2.5 0.5
Prep – planning 0.7
Prep – laundry 1.7
Prep – general 5.1
Break 9.0 12.0
Exercise 4.0 7.7 4 days with at least 10k steps
Sewing 3.6
Travel 2.8 2.9
Writing 1.8 7.3
Learning 1.2 2.7
Outsourceable 0.8

What have I learned?

Rational economics is useful for modifying your own behavior.

If I spend my weekend afternoons or weekday evenings drawing or sewing instead of writing, I can get into the flow and make a lot of progress.

It’s satisfying to check off things I’ve been procrastinating.

On the other hand, it’s hard to resist writing, because thoughts are buzzing around in my head. Drawing helps a little with that.

Maybe I’ll try doing only one day of alternate focus each week. That might give me some space. Although I’m not sure if it’s the confounding effect of a conference – I always get a little buzzy around conferences. It’s like adapting to a new time signature or tempo.

Hmm…