Weekly review: Week ending November 4, 2011
I worked 46 hours this week. Most of the overtime was from a 12-hour sprint on Tuesday, getting all our tests to run again after weeks of collective neglect. I tried to cut back on work on Thursday and Friday. Between meetings and my own desire to make good progress, I ended up working a regular day.
I don’t feel particularly time-deprived this week. I’ve made good progress on a stuff-tracking component for my personal dashboard, and I’ve improved the tracker for community-supported agriculture produce. I read lots of books. We hosted another study group, too. I’ve prepared lots of food for the coming week.
My bottleneck is more like energy and interest, not raw time. A lot of things are down on my list. Working long hours on client projects means being less inclined to spend additional hours on extracurricular work stuff. I’ll see if I can work out a lighter work week next week so that I can save time and energy for these things. In particular, the Lotus Connections Toolkit is one of those high-leverage things – a little effort can go a long way.
Maybe my time analysis will help me see where the time came from. Hmm…
From last week’s plans
- Work
[X]Project O: Lots more work[X]Project I: Follow up on SQL Server changes[-]Project T: Follow up on pre-launch – meeting next week[-]Prototype flashcards – probably Rails- Submitted annual results
- Shared lots of visualization examples
- Relationships
[X]Facilitate another fun study group[-]Help J- with writing – maybe next week
- Life
[X]Have massage![X]Write about more quantified self stuff[X]Find other quantified self bloggers[X]Improve measurements for home dashboard – added summary- Added stuff tracking to dashboard
- Improved CSA tracking
Plans for next week
- Work
[ ]Work on project O: write more tests[ ]Project O: get e-mail templates finally sorted out[ ]Get project T closer to launching[ ]Prototype flashcards[ ]Work on Lotus Connections Toolkit migration
- Relationships
[ ]Have Maira and Scott over for board games?[ ]Help out with home renovation planning[ ]Follow up on things Mom was interested in
- Life
[ ]Make lots of food[ ]Continue tracking stuff
Time analysis
| Activity | Sat | Sun | Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | Total | Average | Weekday average | Weekend average |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sleep | 8.0 | 6.9 | 7.9 | 7.0 | 7.2 | 7.9 | 5.7 | 50.7 | 7.2 | 7.2 | 7.4 |
| Work | 0.0 | 1.1 | 8.2 | 12.6 | 9.8 | 7.7 | 7.2 | 46.5 | 6.6 | 9.1 | 0.5 |
| Discretionary | 5.6 | 6.3 | 4.5 | 1.6 | 3.5 | 1.9 | 9.0 | 32.4 | 4.6 | 4.1 | 5.9 |
| Unpaid work | 1.7 | 7.8 | 0.5 | 1.0 | 1.6 | 3.0 | 0.6 | 16.2 | 2.3 | 1.3 | 4.8 |
| Personal care | 8.7 | 2.0 | 2.8 | 1.7 | 1.9 | 3.5 | 1.6 | 22.2 | 3.2 | 2.3 | 5.3 |
| Activity | This week | Last week | Delta | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Discretionary | 32.4 | 37.5 | -5.1 | |
| Personal care | 22.2 | 12.6 | 9.6 | |
| Unpaid work | 16.2 | 12.2 | 4.0 | |
| Sleep | 50.7 | 61.1 | -10.5 | |
| Work | 46.5 | 44.5 | 2.0 | Extra time getting tests to pass |
| D – Break | 1.3 | -1.3 | ||
| D – Drawing | 0.1 | 0.7 | -0.6 | |
| D – Other | 9.4 | 0.1 | 9.2 | Worked on personal tracking system |
| D – Personal | 0.6 | 6.6 | -6.0 | |
| D – Reading | 4.9 | 4.4 | 0.5 | |
| D – Shopping | 2.1 | 2.1 | 0.1 | |
| D – Social | 4.3 | 17.1 | -12.8 | |
| D – Writing | 11.1 | 5.3 | 5.8 | Made time for this |
| P – Eating | 1.9 | 1.3 | 0.6 | |
| P – Exercise | 11.3 | 1.8 | 9.5 | Biking on weekends, walking to subway for work |
| P – Routines | 8.9 | 9.5 | -0.6 | Pre-cooked oatmeal saves a little bit of time, but not much |
| UW – Cooking | 9.0 | 1.9 | 7.2 | Processed the vegetables, prepared lamb korma |
| UW – Tidying | 4.6 | 6.6 | -2.0 | |
| UW – Travel | 2.6 | 3.7 | -1.2 | Worked from home one day, biked to work another day |
So it looks like most of the extra time got moved from sleep, hobbies, and socialization. We didn’t have J- this week, so we spent less time helping her with homework (just the Friday study group). I made more time to write, which felt good. I’m also experimenting with doing more up-front cooking instead of waiting until our home-made frozen lunches dwindle, so I spent more time cooking this week.
I’d like to get work under control next week. This probably involves comparing the relief and happiness I can get by scratching the itch in my brain (bugs, tests that still need work…) versus other things that might have less immediate but still valuable payoff (working on my personal projects, investing in relationships). It seems like an excellent idea to work when something’s taking up brainspace so that I can get it out of my head, but there’s always more work to do. Solving one issue leads to another, and another, and another. Work can pose an infinite number of challenges with short-term payoffs. Down this path lies a dangerous temptation to neglect other things, though, so I think it might be more useful to get better at putting those brain-itches into perspective.
I’m sure that if I sit down and make space to think about it, I can come up with ideas for non-work activities that create even more value. I need to externalize that list, because it can be hard to compare a clearly-defined work task (solve issue X in our queue) with a vague idea that I may want to spend more time on relationships or personal projects. It can be difficult to admit that some clearly-defined tasks (ex: get the Lotus Connections Toolkit working again) end up with lower priorities than exploratory tasks (ex: do a freezer audit and nudge us closer to a better finished meals:frozen ingredients ratio).
There’s also the risk of procrastinating things that are really worth doing. At some point, the mental cost of carrying these ideas around (or even stashing them in one’s to-do list) outweighs the benefits of other activities. Still, it’s a good idea to make sure your priorities strongly influence how you spend your time, particularly when work is so fun that it can suck you into flow experiences. Flow isn’t bad, but it’s also not always good.
I’ve circled around this idea for several paragraphs now, so there’s probably something here that I need to pay attention to. Hmm.
—
Also, wake-up times have edged forward a little bit. Let’s see how the end of Daylight Savings Time changes things, too.
![[me]](/blog/wp-content/themes/sacha-v3/images/face.png)
I'm 