The efficiency of the working day of one PMA
Hello.
In this peculiar article I would like to highlight the issue of labor efficiency during the working day at the position of a project manager (another IT manager).
There will be no analytics in numbers, excerpts from a pile of books on time managment, but only personal experience and dry conclusions. I'm not going to reinvent the wheel before your eyes, but I hope that I will serve as a good example.
Welcome under cat.
It so happened that I was lucky to be engaged in a difficult, but even more interesting project in the role of a project manager (further manager). By the way, in the most correct understanding of this profession I did not work with PM in this moment, so for me this is a completely new experience. And where is the new experience, there is a new rake.
At first everything was very cool: new tasks, new requirements, new sensations. But with each period of product iteration, new tasks became more and more, while the old ones demanded support from my side and further support of them.
And at one point, I realized that swam. I stopped doing many things. Coming to work in the morning, I had no idea where to start, to grab hold of. I began to sit up until the night in the full sense of the expression. It is time to revise your working day in order to increase its efficiency.
')
When you work with a strictly rationed working day, there are no problems with the schedule in principle. You always know when employees need to come to work, when to leave. Accordingly, there are no problems with planning.
But I work in an organization where flexibility is widespread. Also, according to my observations, flexible scheduling is used in many IT companies and not only.
No, a flexible schedule is insanely cool. But every day I came all later, and left even later, because I stayed with the guys who are comfortable working late at night. Yes, this "snowball" in all its glory. Which, moreover, began to knock me out of my life rut.
Unfortunately, to be everywhere and always is simply not possible, no matter how much I want it. I analyzed the work time of all the colleagues I needed at this stage, identifying the period with the maximum intersection of all working hours. For example, now it is a period from 10-11 am to 8-9 pm. I began to stick to this schedule, ignoring all questions after it. In addition to calculations in production at 11 pm (:
The result of such a change more than suited me. I began to get enough sleep, I was freed up time for personal affairs. My colleagues always know when I can be caught in the workplace, and they are no longer besieged by questions at any time convenient to them.
As a result, the schedule was not quite flexible, but quite convenient for me.
Planning a day is very important, and it is interconnected with many other things.
For a start, I tried to systematically systematize the day: from the morning the post office, before the lunch of the meeting, after dinner, the questions requiring my presence, in the evening - planning the next day.
This does not work. I often see colleagues who even paint their working hours in a similar way in a personal schedule accessible to everyone, but I don’t understand how they manage to work at all. This is not very flexible, every day there are questions that require immediate solutions, your presence and so on. Such things upset all plans, you have to again catch up with the lost.
Partial planning with the presence of empty windows for urgent questions does not work either. There is always something that is needed here and now.
Realizing that such planning does not work for me, and I spend too much time on organizing it, catching up the lost time, I tried to approach this process from the other side. As a result, I was born the usual list of tasks that have only a deadline. At the end of each day, or in the morning on the way to work, I look through this list and select the tasks that I want to solve for the day. It takes a minimum amount of time, but I always know what I need to do today. Prioritizing this list is a separate topic.
And what about current or just-emerging tasks?
As for the "routine", urgent issues, meetings, I began to solve all these things at once, as they arise. There are no unread or demanding replies in my mailbox. And there is practically no urgent business at the end of the day. Work meetings are scheduled according to free time. No “postpone”, queues and other things, only here and now.
The fact is that I try to read / reply to the received letter as quickly as possible. This allows for more detailed control of the setting. Very useful in case of notifications from the bug tracker, for example.
Urgent issues in the bulk are solved very quickly. However, there are urgent, but global challenges. In this case, I try to launch possible working questions right away so that in the very near future I can have an intermediate result with which I can work further.
At the exit, my head during the day is occupied only with the necessary tasks, and everything urgent is solved in the shortest possible time while it is “burning”. Not to say that this is the easiest way. I had to learn how to switch between tasks as quickly as possible, at first there was dissonance, but the result justified the efforts: productivity increased, after a while I was able to take more tasks to solve during the working day than before. And to solve them successfully, I must say.
Separately, I want to talk about "time killers."
I am not against social networks, resources with a bunch of cats and other things. In fact, these things are great help.
Despite the fact that I got rid of my “childhood” diseases, I still had days when I was less effective. The problem was that I was morally burned out. I was concentrating too hard on work issues, trying not to be distracted by anything else, which ultimately led to rapid exhaustion. What kind of work is there ...
The solution to this problem is very simple: to pause when I feel that I am starting to get tired. The only condition - during a pause, you need to do something finite. It is necessary to clearly realize that what you are distracted from work for, should distract you only for a certain period. In this case, the three approaches to the horizontal bar, the head of the art book, today's collection of cats are perfect.
To a lesser extent - communication in the social. networks and messengers, because it can take an indefinite period, whether you like it or not. Is that bad. I often practice lunch with friends, it allows me to digress, but at the end of dinner, I say goodbye and continue to communicate after the end of the working day. And do not forget, personal communication should not bother you during work, except for urgent and important issues.
This step allowed me to dose the load during the day, and there were fewer problem days. Of course, there are few effective days when it is trivially unhealthy, but this is the exception rather than the rule.
Working in other areas, I always tried to share work and personal time. The laptop always stayed at work at the end of the day, just like any other thing related to business. And it worked, but not in my current situation.
In the post of PMA you should always be aware of what is happening, wherever you are. I realized this, once having missed an important meeting at which issues related to my official duties were resolved. In the end, they decided without me, and I received a summary of the meeting after the fact.
This case forced me to knock out access to personal mail, calendar, internal resources and IMs from all my mobile devices. A couple of notification settings, and now at any moment I know what's going on around my projects. No, I do not work on weekends, but I can take a few minutes to read the same incoming correspondence. And now I have the confidence that going to work on Monday (any other day of the week) I have a current state of affairs. This helps me to be immediately involved in the work, and not to start the day with the next planning and updating issues.
As for temporary records, everything is simple. Previously, I trusted my memory almost 100%, I never summarized the meeting, did not record anything. And coped. But at the PMA post, the flow of information that has passed through me has greatly increased, to remember everything has become a problem.
For starters, I tried to take notes in the same Evernote'e. But did not stick, I had discomfort due to the low write speed. Then came the diary, which had to be systematized somehow. It also tired and took some time.
As a result, I use a regular A4 sheet, on which I bring something with a long-term perspective, and I remember all the short-term information perfectly. After solving the problem, this sheet is discarded, a new one is started up instead. No systematization, and such record keeping gives me a feeling of lightness and “clean head”. Subjectively, but it helps me.
After all these measures, my KPI has grown pretty significantly. It's great, but I understand that there are a number of problems that I definitely need to work on. And my biggest mistake is really that I paid almost no attention to the organization of my work. Well, the lesson is learned.
I hope I served you a good example. And I will be very pleased to hear your comments, comments and suggestions. One caveat: I really want to hear your personal experience.
Thank you all and have a good productive day.
UPD : in the comments brought a lot of useful services to account for time or tasks. Thank you, some I have seen, some - no, and I will definitely meet them. But there is one "but", Similar services require to have a laptop / tablet / phone. Unfortunately, in my case, this is often not always possible, the discussion often occurs in a corridor or cafe. And while I'm sure that the speed with which I will write or draw something on a sheet of paper is much higher than I will do it on the phone / other device. Soul, I understand that it is necessary to move on to something more automated, but the brain still stubbornly clings to Grandfather’s method.
The list of software from the comments:
- OmniFocus (Mac, iPhone, iPad)
- SmartTimer (Mac)
- Timing (Mac)
- Feeds (Mac)
- Trello Trello (Web, iPhone, iPad)
- workflowy (Web)
- Pomodoro (Web, extension for Chromium based browsers)
- Remember the milk (Web, Desktop, Mobile apps)
In this peculiar article I would like to highlight the issue of labor efficiency during the working day at the position of a project manager (another IT manager).
There will be no analytics in numbers, excerpts from a pile of books on time managment, but only personal experience and dry conclusions. I'm not going to reinvent the wheel before your eyes, but I hope that I will serve as a good example.
Welcome under cat.
Foreword
It so happened that I was lucky to be engaged in a difficult, but even more interesting project in the role of a project manager (further manager). By the way, in the most correct understanding of this profession I did not work with PM in this moment, so for me this is a completely new experience. And where is the new experience, there is a new rake.
At first everything was very cool: new tasks, new requirements, new sensations. But with each period of product iteration, new tasks became more and more, while the old ones demanded support from my side and further support of them.
And at one point, I realized that swam. I stopped doing many things. Coming to work in the morning, I had no idea where to start, to grab hold of. I began to sit up until the night in the full sense of the expression. It is time to revise your working day in order to increase its efficiency.
')
Schedule
When you work with a strictly rationed working day, there are no problems with the schedule in principle. You always know when employees need to come to work, when to leave. Accordingly, there are no problems with planning.
But I work in an organization where flexibility is widespread. Also, according to my observations, flexible scheduling is used in many IT companies and not only.
No, a flexible schedule is insanely cool. But every day I came all later, and left even later, because I stayed with the guys who are comfortable working late at night. Yes, this "snowball" in all its glory. Which, moreover, began to knock me out of my life rut.
Unfortunately, to be everywhere and always is simply not possible, no matter how much I want it. I analyzed the work time of all the colleagues I needed at this stage, identifying the period with the maximum intersection of all working hours. For example, now it is a period from 10-11 am to 8-9 pm. I began to stick to this schedule, ignoring all questions after it. In addition to calculations in production at 11 pm (:
The result of such a change more than suited me. I began to get enough sleep, I was freed up time for personal affairs. My colleagues always know when I can be caught in the workplace, and they are no longer besieged by questions at any time convenient to them.
As a result, the schedule was not quite flexible, but quite convenient for me.
Day planning
Planning a day is very important, and it is interconnected with many other things.
For a start, I tried to systematically systematize the day: from the morning the post office, before the lunch of the meeting, after dinner, the questions requiring my presence, in the evening - planning the next day.
This does not work. I often see colleagues who even paint their working hours in a similar way in a personal schedule accessible to everyone, but I don’t understand how they manage to work at all. This is not very flexible, every day there are questions that require immediate solutions, your presence and so on. Such things upset all plans, you have to again catch up with the lost.
Partial planning with the presence of empty windows for urgent questions does not work either. There is always something that is needed here and now.
Realizing that such planning does not work for me, and I spend too much time on organizing it, catching up the lost time, I tried to approach this process from the other side. As a result, I was born the usual list of tasks that have only a deadline. At the end of each day, or in the morning on the way to work, I look through this list and select the tasks that I want to solve for the day. It takes a minimum amount of time, but I always know what I need to do today. Prioritizing this list is a separate topic.
And what about current or just-emerging tasks?
"Flow"
As for the "routine", urgent issues, meetings, I began to solve all these things at once, as they arise. There are no unread or demanding replies in my mailbox. And there is practically no urgent business at the end of the day. Work meetings are scheduled according to free time. No “postpone”, queues and other things, only here and now.
The fact is that I try to read / reply to the received letter as quickly as possible. This allows for more detailed control of the setting. Very useful in case of notifications from the bug tracker, for example.
Urgent issues in the bulk are solved very quickly. However, there are urgent, but global challenges. In this case, I try to launch possible working questions right away so that in the very near future I can have an intermediate result with which I can work further.
At the exit, my head during the day is occupied only with the necessary tasks, and everything urgent is solved in the shortest possible time while it is “burning”. Not to say that this is the easiest way. I had to learn how to switch between tasks as quickly as possible, at first there was dissonance, but the result justified the efforts: productivity increased, after a while I was able to take more tasks to solve during the working day than before. And to solve them successfully, I must say.
Time killing, breaks in the workflow
Separately, I want to talk about "time killers."
I am not against social networks, resources with a bunch of cats and other things. In fact, these things are great help.
Despite the fact that I got rid of my “childhood” diseases, I still had days when I was less effective. The problem was that I was morally burned out. I was concentrating too hard on work issues, trying not to be distracted by anything else, which ultimately led to rapid exhaustion. What kind of work is there ...
The solution to this problem is very simple: to pause when I feel that I am starting to get tired. The only condition - during a pause, you need to do something finite. It is necessary to clearly realize that what you are distracted from work for, should distract you only for a certain period. In this case, the three approaches to the horizontal bar, the head of the art book, today's collection of cats are perfect.
To a lesser extent - communication in the social. networks and messengers, because it can take an indefinite period, whether you like it or not. Is that bad. I often practice lunch with friends, it allows me to digress, but at the end of dinner, I say goodbye and continue to communicate after the end of the working day. And do not forget, personal communication should not bother you during work, except for urgent and important issues.
This step allowed me to dose the load during the day, and there were fewer problem days. Of course, there are few effective days when it is trivially unhealthy, but this is the exception rather than the rule.
Availability of working information, temporary records
Working in other areas, I always tried to share work and personal time. The laptop always stayed at work at the end of the day, just like any other thing related to business. And it worked, but not in my current situation.
In the post of PMA you should always be aware of what is happening, wherever you are. I realized this, once having missed an important meeting at which issues related to my official duties were resolved. In the end, they decided without me, and I received a summary of the meeting after the fact.
This case forced me to knock out access to personal mail, calendar, internal resources and IMs from all my mobile devices. A couple of notification settings, and now at any moment I know what's going on around my projects. No, I do not work on weekends, but I can take a few minutes to read the same incoming correspondence. And now I have the confidence that going to work on Monday (any other day of the week) I have a current state of affairs. This helps me to be immediately involved in the work, and not to start the day with the next planning and updating issues.
As for temporary records, everything is simple. Previously, I trusted my memory almost 100%, I never summarized the meeting, did not record anything. And coped. But at the PMA post, the flow of information that has passed through me has greatly increased, to remember everything has become a problem.
For starters, I tried to take notes in the same Evernote'e. But did not stick, I had discomfort due to the low write speed. Then came the diary, which had to be systematized somehow. It also tired and took some time.
As a result, I use a regular A4 sheet, on which I bring something with a long-term perspective, and I remember all the short-term information perfectly. After solving the problem, this sheet is discarded, a new one is started up instead. No systematization, and such record keeping gives me a feeling of lightness and “clean head”. Subjectively, but it helps me.
Total
After all these measures, my KPI has grown pretty significantly. It's great, but I understand that there are a number of problems that I definitely need to work on. And my biggest mistake is really that I paid almost no attention to the organization of my work. Well, the lesson is learned.
I hope I served you a good example. And I will be very pleased to hear your comments, comments and suggestions. One caveat: I really want to hear your personal experience.
Thank you all and have a good productive day.
UPD : in the comments brought a lot of useful services to account for time or tasks. Thank you, some I have seen, some - no, and I will definitely meet them. But there is one "but", Similar services require to have a laptop / tablet / phone. Unfortunately, in my case, this is often not always possible, the discussion often occurs in a corridor or cafe. And while I'm sure that the speed with which I will write or draw something on a sheet of paper is much higher than I will do it on the phone / other device. Soul, I understand that it is necessary to move on to something more automated, but the brain still stubbornly clings to Grandfather’s method.
The list of software from the comments:
- OmniFocus (Mac, iPhone, iPad)
- SmartTimer (Mac)
- Timing (Mac)
- Feeds (Mac)
- Trello Trello (Web, iPhone, iPad)
- workflowy (Web)
- Pomodoro (Web, extension for Chromium based browsers)
- Remember the milk (Web, Desktop, Mobile apps)
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/175119/
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