How to keep up with everything or a startup as a time management training
It all started in 2009. I worked in a large software development company. Our team was engaged in the implementation of a fairly large project. My duties were rather blurred. While my manager provided the implementation of the project from the outside (he communicated with the management, managers, etc.), I was involved in solving the internal problems of the project - I designed, made plans, set tasks for developers, followed the direction of work, etc. Shortly before the events described, the company changed management, a very tangible reorganization took place, the development course of the company as a whole (and the project in particular) has shifted considerably compared with the original plan. And I could not say that the new direction of development suits me.
The year was coming to an end. The present was predictable and rather dismal, the future proposed by the new leadership looked vague and did not inspire confidence. At this time, one good comrade suggested: "And let's do something of our own!"
I will not talk about what we have done, how we have done, etc. I want to tell you how I changed by participating in a startup. What lessons I went through, what I managed to learn. Hopefully, full of bumps and experience will be useful to someone, or at least interesting.
')
By the time this story began, I had already practiced some time management techniques. I read the book of Gleb Arkhangelsky, a certain number of articles on this topic. Infused with the idea of āāpersonal time management, and with moderate energy used some of the methods learned from the books. Actively used the electronic organizer to manage working routine and even some household chores. As a result, he managed to do a lot of work at work, tried to prevent accidents and accumulation of unfinished business. I was considered a good specialist, successfully carried out work on the current project and even managed to do something else. For example, once a year he wrote some article (usually in collaboration ;-)). Also, once a week, I read a half-hour lecture to students. A pregnant wife, a small child and a dog were waiting for me at home. In the subway (on the way to the office and back) I read fiction.
The settled working rhythm suited me perfectly, I was almost satisfied with everything. In particular, personal progress seemed to me quite sufficient. Therefore, I decided that I would completely cope with the additional burden that was assumed to be involved in the new activity.
Almost two years have passed since then. I became a little less new, and the number of gray hair in my beard reached four. What else has changed?
At the moment I am in the lead roles in two big projects and one small one. And one more as a consultant. Lesson with the students began to last two and a half hours. A lecture of this length is an almost unbearable lesson for both the listeners and the lecturer, so I took the second half of the lesson as a practical lesson. The students and I decided to try to make a small and simple information system for the semester with our own hands. It turns out that I am participating in another project - i.e. just four.
Over the past six months, I have published 5 specialized articles in an electronic journal for developers. He wrote more than two dozen posts on his blog on application development aspects. Every day I read articles on professional topics, participate in forums. I put in order many fragmentary information, which was full of head, pulled the theoretical base for many practical developments.
Bottom line: my professional growth over the past two years is comparable to the previous ten. But the actual working hours have greatly decreased, since the number of household chores has increased: three or five times a week I take my older child to various classes, not counting any force majors (children, you know, often get sick ļ).
As it is easy to notice, there is a rather big performance increase. Due to what was able to achieve this?
It all started quite rosy. We came up with the idea, figured out how everything should look, and started to implement it with energy. The first six months, I was engaged in this project without interrupting the main work. He worked mostly in the evenings, sometimes he spent time in the office. When the product was more or less drawn, I realized that I was no longer able to fit two projects in my head - they both demanded a lot of attention from me. I made a difficult decision for myself: leave the main place of work and immerse myself in the new project. For some time it took the preparation of this decision - I did not want to leave behind the ruins. Gradually, I ceased to play a key role in the first draft and almost with a clear conscience wrote a letter of resignation. At the same time, I managed to keep my workplace, so leaving was, to some extent, a formality - I was sitting in the same room, at the same computer. This happened in the fall of 2010.
Autumn is the beginning of the school year. The eldest child went to kindergarten and began to bring from there all sorts of bacilli, which the younger one enjoyed with pleasure - he had only half a year passed. We often had to stay at home until lunch, or even stay for the whole day, as the wife simply physically couldnāt cope with the two semi-sick blockheads. But still there were two of us, so sometimes I could work on a project, even being at home. In order not to waste time in vain, I organized a workplace on a home computer. However, this did not give a noticeable effect - it took a surprisingly long time to synchronize the environment on work and home computers. Then I started a laptop and since then it is my main workplace, which I always carry with me. Thanks to this decision, I could continue to work at any place from the place where I stopped. This allowed us to keep the performance at a decent level and almost keep up with the schedule, even staying at home.
Then the universe decided to throw me entertainment. First, the eldest child broke the collarbone during a walk. An ambulance took him to the hospital, and I went with him. We only stayed in the hospital until the morning, but this was enough for him to pick up some kind of monstrous sickness there ...
The next few months, I remember vaguely. Separate shots of the next āentertainmentā pop up: for the new year, the younger one shouted out in the cold to monstrous sore throat; Problems fell one after another. I did not get to the office more than once every two weeks. I had to work in fragments, communication with my colleagues took place mostly through the Internet.
And by the end of May we made the first version of the program. The backlog of the original plan was only a month.
This period was incredibly difficult for me. But it was precisely these difficulties that taught me to concentrate on the task and do the work, using every opportunity. For example, putting the child to sleep, think about the device of the next function. When he falls asleep, he will run to the computer to record the results. After 10 minutes, run to calm, then go to the store for bread, and again to the computer. I used every pause that occurred, even in a few minutes, to move forward at least a little. Later, as life returned to its normal course, I was able to devote āemergingā time to other activities ā reading books, writing articles, and other projects.
In conclusion, I want to take stock and summarize my experience a bit. I made several conclusions for myself and try to follow them.
I hope that no one has the feeling that itās worthwhile to summon the adventure to your... head, as this immediately leads to a striking increase in productivity. A completely different component is important here - a sincere desire for a result, which, combined with the unsatisfactory speed of approaching the result, involuntarily leads to systemic changes in the environment. Simply put - if a person is satisfied with everything, then he is unlikely to move and strive to work better and do more.
It is also rather meaningless to talk about how to do it, not supported by practical actions. I do not call for the "sawing" without hesitation. I just want to say that reflections should be aimed at the result, and not artistic painting on water with objects of peasant life.
It is important not to worry about the fact that it does not have time. It is better to focus on dealing with the consequences of not having time. From here is a simple consequence - at first it is better to do not those things that bring you closer to some lofty goal, but those that promise maximum problems if they are not done on time. Because these problems will continue to eat away from you a valuable resource of time, which is better to safely spend on a high goal.
And a small addition: if you have time for everything planned, then most likely you can do more.
That's all.
Questions?
The year was coming to an end. The present was predictable and rather dismal, the future proposed by the new leadership looked vague and did not inspire confidence. At this time, one good comrade suggested: "And let's do something of our own!"
I will not talk about what we have done, how we have done, etc. I want to tell you how I changed by participating in a startup. What lessons I went through, what I managed to learn. Hopefully, full of bumps and experience will be useful to someone, or at least interesting.
')
Instead of an epigraph.
A Jew comes to the rabbi and says:
- Rebbe, help! I have such a hard life, even in the loop ...
- Tell me, what torments you?
- I have a big family, and we all live in a one-room apartment, my mother is seriously ill, my wife walks, my son got involved with the hooligans, my daughter got pregnant from someone unknown, I was fired from work ... What should I do?
- Buy a goat.
- ??
- Buy a goat and come back in a week.
A week has passed. The Jew again comes to the rabbi:
- Rebbe, how is it? Why did I listen to you and buy a goat? Life has become quite unbearable, among other things now there is stench and dirt everywhere !!! What should I do?!
- Sell the goat and come to me in a day.
A day later, an absolutely happy Jew resorted to a rabbi:
- I sold a goat! Now I know what happiness is !!!
Popular wisdom.
Part 1. What was
By the time this story began, I had already practiced some time management techniques. I read the book of Gleb Arkhangelsky, a certain number of articles on this topic. Infused with the idea of āāpersonal time management, and with moderate energy used some of the methods learned from the books. Actively used the electronic organizer to manage working routine and even some household chores. As a result, he managed to do a lot of work at work, tried to prevent accidents and accumulation of unfinished business. I was considered a good specialist, successfully carried out work on the current project and even managed to do something else. For example, once a year he wrote some article (usually in collaboration ;-)). Also, once a week, I read a half-hour lecture to students. A pregnant wife, a small child and a dog were waiting for me at home. In the subway (on the way to the office and back) I read fiction.
The settled working rhythm suited me perfectly, I was almost satisfied with everything. In particular, personal progress seemed to me quite sufficient. Therefore, I decided that I would completely cope with the additional burden that was assumed to be involved in the new activity.
Part 2. What became
Almost two years have passed since then. I became a little less new, and the number of gray hair in my beard reached four. What else has changed?
At the moment I am in the lead roles in two big projects and one small one. And one more as a consultant. Lesson with the students began to last two and a half hours. A lecture of this length is an almost unbearable lesson for both the listeners and the lecturer, so I took the second half of the lesson as a practical lesson. The students and I decided to try to make a small and simple information system for the semester with our own hands. It turns out that I am participating in another project - i.e. just four.
Over the past six months, I have published 5 specialized articles in an electronic journal for developers. He wrote more than two dozen posts on his blog on application development aspects. Every day I read articles on professional topics, participate in forums. I put in order many fragmentary information, which was full of head, pulled the theoretical base for many practical developments.
Bottom line: my professional growth over the past two years is comparable to the previous ten. But the actual working hours have greatly decreased, since the number of household chores has increased: three or five times a week I take my older child to various classes, not counting any force majors (children, you know, often get sick ļ).
As it is easy to notice, there is a rather big performance increase. Due to what was able to achieve this?
Part 3. How it was
It all started quite rosy. We came up with the idea, figured out how everything should look, and started to implement it with energy. The first six months, I was engaged in this project without interrupting the main work. He worked mostly in the evenings, sometimes he spent time in the office. When the product was more or less drawn, I realized that I was no longer able to fit two projects in my head - they both demanded a lot of attention from me. I made a difficult decision for myself: leave the main place of work and immerse myself in the new project. For some time it took the preparation of this decision - I did not want to leave behind the ruins. Gradually, I ceased to play a key role in the first draft and almost with a clear conscience wrote a letter of resignation. At the same time, I managed to keep my workplace, so leaving was, to some extent, a formality - I was sitting in the same room, at the same computer. This happened in the fall of 2010.
Autumn is the beginning of the school year. The eldest child went to kindergarten and began to bring from there all sorts of bacilli, which the younger one enjoyed with pleasure - he had only half a year passed. We often had to stay at home until lunch, or even stay for the whole day, as the wife simply physically couldnāt cope with the two semi-sick blockheads. But still there were two of us, so sometimes I could work on a project, even being at home. In order not to waste time in vain, I organized a workplace on a home computer. However, this did not give a noticeable effect - it took a surprisingly long time to synchronize the environment on work and home computers. Then I started a laptop and since then it is my main workplace, which I always carry with me. Thanks to this decision, I could continue to work at any place from the place where I stopped. This allowed us to keep the performance at a decent level and almost keep up with the schedule, even staying at home.
Then the universe decided to throw me entertainment. First, the eldest child broke the collarbone during a walk. An ambulance took him to the hospital, and I went with him. We only stayed in the hospital until the morning, but this was enough for him to pick up some kind of monstrous sickness there ...
The next few months, I remember vaguely. Separate shots of the next āentertainmentā pop up: for the new year, the younger one shouted out in the cold to monstrous sore throat; Problems fell one after another. I did not get to the office more than once every two weeks. I had to work in fragments, communication with my colleagues took place mostly through the Internet.
And by the end of May we made the first version of the program. The backlog of the original plan was only a month.
This period was incredibly difficult for me. But it was precisely these difficulties that taught me to concentrate on the task and do the work, using every opportunity. For example, putting the child to sleep, think about the device of the next function. When he falls asleep, he will run to the computer to record the results. After 10 minutes, run to calm, then go to the store for bread, and again to the computer. I used every pause that occurred, even in a few minutes, to move forward at least a little. Later, as life returned to its normal course, I was able to devote āemergingā time to other activities ā reading books, writing articles, and other projects.
Conclusion
In conclusion, I want to take stock and summarize my experience a bit. I made several conclusions for myself and try to follow them.
Conclusion 1. To be engaged in increase in productivity the occasion is necessary.
I hope that no one has the feeling that itās worthwhile to summon the adventure to your
Conclusion 2. In order to do business, you need to do it, and not to talk about why it is difficult or impossible.
It is also rather meaningless to talk about how to do it, not supported by practical actions. I do not call for the "sawing" without hesitation. I just want to say that reflections should be aimed at the result, and not artistic painting on water with objects of peasant life.
Conclusion 3. Everything is impossible to keep up.
It is important not to worry about the fact that it does not have time. It is better to focus on dealing with the consequences of not having time. From here is a simple consequence - at first it is better to do not those things that bring you closer to some lofty goal, but those that promise maximum problems if they are not done on time. Because these problems will continue to eat away from you a valuable resource of time, which is better to safely spend on a high goal.
And a small addition: if you have time for everything planned, then most likely you can do more.
That's all.
Questions?
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/140790/
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