April 8, 2009 at 11:50 pm
Distractions...
Like your cars and energy updates? I didn't know what to think about the fact that I enjoy reading these editorials until I have moved to the suburb, into a bigger house for my growing family.
Now that I have to give 2 or 3 hours of my day to drive to and from the office downtown and spend 2x more energy to comfort the house, I feel there is more of a distraction in this kind of reading. Even if I do it at the office!
The ideas that I get from reading such columns are mostly good to reorganize my home/work balance and reduce the stress on my professional and family lives. Often, they make me work better.
A daily feed like TechRepublic is more dangerous and we have to be more cautious because a lot of good information comes from there. All good: from the tricks that will make you more productive, to the nicest pictures of a Saturn's moon or the demolition of an iPhone.
When I feel that some information is more prone to leisure, I forward it to a personal email account I have on the web and hope some day I get the time to enjoy it.
And sometime, it happens that at a late time when everyone but me sleeps in the house and the work is done (like right now).
(shhhh... I'm going to put my headphones on and watch those sci-fi trailers before I go to sleep)
April 9, 2009 at 2:53 am
Good and helpful.
"Your wealth lies on where your time sticks".
😎
April 9, 2009 at 5:22 am
Thanks to an article published here a few months back, I read a book called Getting Things Done by David Allen. He's pretty ruthless with time management too. It's made a difference for me because I've been overcommitting on time (Scouts... woof) and need to be pretty much like Andy said, ruthless with time management.
I see some value in the social networks, just as a way to keep tabs on friends & colleagues, but I'm spending a lot less time on them now than I did previously.
"The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood"
- Theodore Roosevelt
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April 9, 2009 at 5:50 am
Steve
Having been in this business for 40+ years, I can only say "Welcome to the real Life of a busy person".....
As the 'old' saying goes "Life's a B.... and then you die!".
April 9, 2009 at 6:07 am
I think the two worst time suckers are Television and Telephones.
Television sucks up my private life, and Telephones were a horrible waste of my business time.
My third worst is giving everyone my two cents worth on forums, or replying to emails that I am CCed on.
I've actually started forcing myself to just shut up. Is that in any of the time management books?
April 9, 2009 at 6:22 am
I've tried to modify my statement to 'some of those tools don't offer ENOUGH value' for me, for right now. Not trying to dissuade anyone from using them or finding their own value in them.
It's definitely useful to try to find ways to boost productivity, and maybe that even applies to being creative, but it's the hardest. I've seen a lot of people (including me at times) working 50 hours to get 40 hours work done, when if they stopped visiting the water cooler or other non-essential task of your choice, they could have easily spent a lot fewer hours at the office. It's human to find distractions more interesting than work, and all too human to find them easier to fall prey to when we're tired, bored, or frustrated.
Plus, now I'm thinking...should I have used a better word than ruthless? One that didn't make me seem....ruthless?!
April 9, 2009 at 6:38 am
I actually found ruthless to be a very appropriate term. Every day another thousand potential distractions are created to try to grab our attention and vie for a slice of our life. We are literally bombarded with information to an extent never imagined 30 years ago. If I'm interested in world events, or the economic crisis, or technology, or sports, or SQL, I could browse news sites and blogs all day. You have to decide what is most important in your life and let the rest go.
__________________________________________________
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April 9, 2009 at 6:50 am
Andy Warren (4/9/2009)
I've tried to modify my statement to 'some of those tools don't offer ENOUGH value' for me, for right now. Not trying to dissuade anyone from using them or finding their own value in them.It's definitely useful to try to find ways to boost productivity, and maybe that even applies to being creative, but it's the hardest. I've seen a lot of people (including me at times) working 50 hours to get 40 hours work done, when if they stopped visiting the water cooler or other non-essential task of your choice, they could have easily spent a lot fewer hours at the office. It's human to find distractions more interesting than work, and all too human to find them easier to fall prey to when we're tired, bored, or frustrated.
Plus, now I'm thinking...should I have used a better word than ruthless? One that didn't make me seem....ruthless?!
No, no. I like ruthless. It fits the situation well. And it fits you to a tee, Warden Warren of the Florida Corrections System.
"The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood"
- Theodore Roosevelt
Author of:
SQL Server Execution Plans
SQL Server Query Performance Tuning
April 9, 2009 at 7:14 am
I think some of you have a backwards perspective on this (no offense).
I always set aside time for myself everyday, and i'm pretty ruthless about it. Whether it's so i can watch some TV, read a book, go out to dinner, or just stare out a window for a few minutes. I certainly like what i do for a living, but i don't live to fill in the gaps between working hours.
I'm also with Andy as far as the Social networking stuff goes; i know too many people who pour hours into it and get nothing back (personally i prefer to do that with Rock Band and the like).
This is coming out sounding harsher than i meant it to, but i'm kinda stuck being blunt. I've been in situations where there was a lot of work to be done in far too short a time, and in those times i give it everything. No lunch, fewer breaks, no talking unless it's about the work. As soon as i leave, however, it becomes my time, and i'll be damned if i let work suck me back in.
April 9, 2009 at 7:19 am
The best trick I've ever found for time management and efficiency is: If you pick something up, finish it, and do it right. The single biggest waste of time for most people is things like reading through all your e-mails, deciding which ones to handle, then having to go back through them to handle them. Just doubles the time you spend reading them. That one alone saves more time than you might think.
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April 9, 2009 at 7:36 am
G: Do you prioritize what needs to be done first, or just take things on a FIFO basis?
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Against stupidity the gods themselves contend in vain. -- Friedrich Schiller
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April 9, 2009 at 7:38 am
Aren't too many distractions a result of being too busy and is thus the individual's fault? I think regarding phone calls and emails distractions is a reflection of one's stress level. It is personal choices that affect our ability to handle daily minutia. Too much stress and a simple hello from a colleague can be difficult to handle. The choice to take on too much and then juggle everything is our own decision. One can choose to partake in Twitter and facebook.
At work, we can make choices to say no, or, at least make the requestors aware that their project will have to wait. We can make choices in our personal lives that affect our ability to handle stress.
:crazy:
April 9, 2009 at 9:29 am
For an IT type worker, I'm a bit of a luddite. I absolutely refuse to have a television, only got a cell phone last year, no ipod, and only buy into some kind of tech craze after it has been proofed in the real world (cell phones do have advantages, I have found, but I also lived just fine without one for decades).
No facebook garbage, twitter (aptly named, for once), etc. I find that these kinds of technology do not improve the quality of my social life, only its 'quantity'.
April 9, 2009 at 9:49 am
DavidL is, I think being ruthless. He's choosing what has value to him and what is worth spending time on.
That's the idea.
Not that Twitter, or answering the phone, watching TV, etc. requires a value judgment from anyone else. It's up to the individual deciding what value something has to them. I see Twitter as valuable to me. I do see a quality value of interacting with others in it. But that doesn't mean it fits you.
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