One too many...
Woah, talk about having an intensive start! I wake up, and get like 3 phone calls straight of people asking me questions and stuff! Don't get me wrong, they did nothing wrong, but today I really just wanted to wake up and just relax for a bit. I've had a long hard day yesterday as I juggled many meetings and pushed myself to rethink of strategies for the day while I was outside most of the day. My new GTD implementation in Outlook is really rocking! There still are a few glitches I need to work out on a personal customization level, but otherwise I'm loving my current work process I've created for myself. The only problem is when my next-action widgets keep growing while I don't have enough time to crank through each one of them. It's like, I know what I need to do and they keep piling up but I physically can't keep up with it at times.
Yes I need to get extra help, I agree, but I think there are a few more kinks I need to sort through before I can think of hiring people to help me out. I guess the main thing stopping me is the need for a flexible schedule on my part. You know that experiment where they pour oil in a bottle of sand and the oil seeps into the gaps of the sand granules? I'm taking that concept into my daily scheduling because I realized instead of working on one level, for example, like burning a CD-R, I can work on two levels, so while burning the CD-R, I could finish typing that email because burning the CD-R doesn't require the resources I need for writing an email. And as I expand, I realize I can do a lot more, like if I need to go to the library, I'll definitely schedule my gym working within that time so I don't find myself going out and coming back and then going out again (ie. I cut out one whole journey from my schedule). However, this requires a new way of thinking when scheduling my time/day because I need to categorize each job and see how they fit best with all the other things I need to do. This is where my GTD implementation comes in with those @PC, @Outdoors, etc. tags but I need to customize them more to suit my personal requirements and taste.
So what has been up? Well I played at a band show! :D Wahoo! I mean not just jamming at the last minute, proper performance. I play drums for this band called Crazimals and we performed last Saturday and it was awesome! I haven't played a proper live gig like that in ages! They're, in my opinion, an emo-hardcore band which reminds me of my old band where we tried to achieve what they're doing. It's quite good fun because their songs aren't all metal, they have more emotions in them so it gives me a good change from my own band : ) Not to mention they sing in Mandarin and all I have to take care of is the drums rather than help manage the band too. I must say I freaking love playing drums, I've been disciplining myself a lot lately with my practice and working hard at it because I know drumming is one of those things you just cant cram. That's a thing I have to take into consideration when organizing myself, there are jobs that can be done all at once and some others that are temporal and need to be spread over time. It's like a wound healing, you can do all your dressing on the same day but no matter what it'll need time to heal.
Speaking of healing wounds, I finally wrote lyrics for 2 of my band's songs! I realized it's quite therapeutic at times but also can sometimes pull you down into the shits while writing it. We're down to our 5th song now and once we get that down and also work out with the vocalist we'll be ready to rock at shows! :) I look forward to it, but before that, there is so much to still do. I need to re-tune my drums a bit better so we can record better because I'm really getting sick of my current drum sound but at the same time what sucks is that I need to re-tune 7 at a go if I plan on doing this! Not to mention a huge burn of time but money too! Drum heads aren't cheap! Especially when you use 2-ply ones as well! Yikes! Ah well, what can you do...
Like I said in my title, there are always one too many things to consider with everything. I've learnt what information-overload is really like and in many ways I'm facing it everyday. I was joking with my friend Samuel yesterday about how it sucks to be "smart". What I mean is that, and as my other friend Sharon told me, the smarter you are, the more people will cling on to you and need your help. It's cool but at the same time can really wear you out. Just yesterday, one of my uncle's computer died and he urgently needed me to help him build a new one, I got it done within 24 hours with everything setup for him. The only reason he called me like this was because he'd heard I was reliable and fast. I knew exactly what to do so within minutes I re-arranged my schedule to accommodate going to the computer mall and getting a custom built computer for him. This brings me to yet another self-organization problem where urgent cases pop up and you need to immediately decide what not to do so you can do this urgent job first. If I hadn't taken the time-sensitivity of the custom-built computer into consideration, I'd have probably lost this opportunity and the income that came along, not to mention a new client :).
So it's another Day 10 entry, and the main thing that happened was I played drums in a live gig! I got my GTD properly implemented into my PDA and Outlook and I'm ready to move on with learning other tools/methods to organize myself. Hopefully in another 10 days I'll have that sorted out too and I'll be one step closer to achieving productivity zen. I like Thomas Edison's goal of every 10 days achieving a minor goal, it really helps me focus better on the bigger picture because I've broken it into smaller bits and pieces. For anyone who doesn't know what I'm talking about, go read a bit about him and you'll see what I mean.
So how am I doing today? I'm a bit stressed out at the moment because I've got to go for a seminar tonight but I have quite a lot of coding work to get done today. I've already got my next week's work scheduled for myself so I must stay on track this week! Oh man, this is like crunch time for me where everything is happening at the same time! Let's see what happens over the next 10 days and I'll let you know if I rocked and rolled or crashed and burned :P
Yes I need to get extra help, I agree, but I think there are a few more kinks I need to sort through before I can think of hiring people to help me out. I guess the main thing stopping me is the need for a flexible schedule on my part. You know that experiment where they pour oil in a bottle of sand and the oil seeps into the gaps of the sand granules? I'm taking that concept into my daily scheduling because I realized instead of working on one level, for example, like burning a CD-R, I can work on two levels, so while burning the CD-R, I could finish typing that email because burning the CD-R doesn't require the resources I need for writing an email. And as I expand, I realize I can do a lot more, like if I need to go to the library, I'll definitely schedule my gym working within that time so I don't find myself going out and coming back and then going out again (ie. I cut out one whole journey from my schedule). However, this requires a new way of thinking when scheduling my time/day because I need to categorize each job and see how they fit best with all the other things I need to do. This is where my GTD implementation comes in with those @PC, @Outdoors, etc. tags but I need to customize them more to suit my personal requirements and taste.
So what has been up? Well I played at a band show! :D Wahoo! I mean not just jamming at the last minute, proper performance. I play drums for this band called Crazimals and we performed last Saturday and it was awesome! I haven't played a proper live gig like that in ages! They're, in my opinion, an emo-hardcore band which reminds me of my old band where we tried to achieve what they're doing. It's quite good fun because their songs aren't all metal, they have more emotions in them so it gives me a good change from my own band : ) Not to mention they sing in Mandarin and all I have to take care of is the drums rather than help manage the band too. I must say I freaking love playing drums, I've been disciplining myself a lot lately with my practice and working hard at it because I know drumming is one of those things you just cant cram. That's a thing I have to take into consideration when organizing myself, there are jobs that can be done all at once and some others that are temporal and need to be spread over time. It's like a wound healing, you can do all your dressing on the same day but no matter what it'll need time to heal.
Speaking of healing wounds, I finally wrote lyrics for 2 of my band's songs! I realized it's quite therapeutic at times but also can sometimes pull you down into the shits while writing it. We're down to our 5th song now and once we get that down and also work out with the vocalist we'll be ready to rock at shows! :) I look forward to it, but before that, there is so much to still do. I need to re-tune my drums a bit better so we can record better because I'm really getting sick of my current drum sound but at the same time what sucks is that I need to re-tune 7 at a go if I plan on doing this! Not to mention a huge burn of time but money too! Drum heads aren't cheap! Especially when you use 2-ply ones as well! Yikes! Ah well, what can you do...
Like I said in my title, there are always one too many things to consider with everything. I've learnt what information-overload is really like and in many ways I'm facing it everyday. I was joking with my friend Samuel yesterday about how it sucks to be "smart". What I mean is that, and as my other friend Sharon told me, the smarter you are, the more people will cling on to you and need your help. It's cool but at the same time can really wear you out. Just yesterday, one of my uncle's computer died and he urgently needed me to help him build a new one, I got it done within 24 hours with everything setup for him. The only reason he called me like this was because he'd heard I was reliable and fast. I knew exactly what to do so within minutes I re-arranged my schedule to accommodate going to the computer mall and getting a custom built computer for him. This brings me to yet another self-organization problem where urgent cases pop up and you need to immediately decide what not to do so you can do this urgent job first. If I hadn't taken the time-sensitivity of the custom-built computer into consideration, I'd have probably lost this opportunity and the income that came along, not to mention a new client :).
So it's another Day 10 entry, and the main thing that happened was I played drums in a live gig! I got my GTD properly implemented into my PDA and Outlook and I'm ready to move on with learning other tools/methods to organize myself. Hopefully in another 10 days I'll have that sorted out too and I'll be one step closer to achieving productivity zen. I like Thomas Edison's goal of every 10 days achieving a minor goal, it really helps me focus better on the bigger picture because I've broken it into smaller bits and pieces. For anyone who doesn't know what I'm talking about, go read a bit about him and you'll see what I mean.
So how am I doing today? I'm a bit stressed out at the moment because I've got to go for a seminar tonight but I have quite a lot of coding work to get done today. I've already got my next week's work scheduled for myself so I must stay on track this week! Oh man, this is like crunch time for me where everything is happening at the same time! Let's see what happens over the next 10 days and I'll let you know if I rocked and rolled or crashed and burned :P
Labels: day 10, GTD, productivity
posted by Vivek Mahbubani at
1:11 PM
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