Project and task management system
5/16/2014
For the kind of research work I do currently, two focus projects is the right number. This allows my mind to think about multiple things and feel substantial forward momentum.
w1 -- most important/time-critical work active project. Should have big-picture significance.
w2 -- work secondary active project
w3 -- work lower focus tasks
p -- personal focus project
a -- arts focus project
w1 and w2 are my two work focus projects. Ideally both have significance toward my big-picture goals, which are documented in my big picture goals document. w3 is tasks that I have to do for myself or others. It's administrative work and tasks for other people's projects. It's stuff that doesn't directly feed into the project tracks for w1 or w2. w3 generally shouldn't contain projects if it can be helped -- I think of the collection of w3 tasks in-and-of-itself as a project -- though there are occasional exceptions when let the w3 list contain a full project. Even though I have only two focus projects, I'm doing lots of things at once because w3 comprises many things.
w1 and w2 can be collaborative or solo projects, but they are projects with my focus, for which I have substantial contribution in terms of my time, and for which I have significant outcome opportunities. Otherwise, my role as a collaborator on other projects is a meeting participant and a completer of specific tasks. These tasks can be thoughtful, of course. For example, the PORTAL project is currently w3 for me even though my role is managerial. I attend meetings to provide direction and have tasks to complete to keep the project on track. However, I take these tasks on sparingly so they can properly fit as w3. If my contribution needed to increase, the project would need to elevate to w1 or w2.
My current goals and responsibilities are documented in my current projects, smaller-picture goals, and responsibilities blog post. Also important, my someday list and another blog post detail projects I've thought of, and perhaps would like to work on, but am not currently working on.
p is my personal focus project. In the past, it has been things like "make wedding photo album."
a is my arts focus project. It is personal learning or achievement goals for music, dance, acting, drawing, creative writing, or whatever suits my current needs.
Each project has associated tasks, which are tracked in project task lists. Each project has its own task list.
When presented with a new task or project offer, I need to first decide whether it is a project with multiple steps or a task with only one step. If it's a task and I choose to take it on, it is categorized as w3. If it is a project and I choose to take it on, it must replace either w1 or w2. If this is the case, I require myself to let my boss know that I am forced with this choice. The other available options are postponement or delegation of the new task/project.
Time management system
5/13/2014
Hugh Kearns, in his talk at Harvard, gave a great illustration for time management. He viewed each thing that takes time as a rock. The size of each rock depends on its importance. Our capacity for work is a container.
He argued that if we first fill the container with small rocks, then we won't be able later to fit in the big rocks. On the other hand, if we first fill the container with the big rocks, we can still drop in many small rocks to fill the spaces between the big rocks. For this reason, I've settled on a system in which I schedule two non-negotiable hours each work day of big rocks work.
On a given day, I have exactly one focus project, and I alternate focus projects on different days. The default schedule is w1 on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday; w2 on Tuesday and Thursday. It is possible to switch days when there are pressing deadlines, but that is discouraged when possible. I especially like to hold to the constraint of the number of focus days on each project in a given week.
On its focus day, each project gets two hours of focused work time -- four pomodoros. This time is preferably in the morning. The focus project of the day also gets any extra time during the day after other required tasks for the day are completed. This is so I don't spend time deciding what to attack when I have spare time on a day.
w3 gets one dedicated hour each weekday. On Friday, the time is spent on backups and review of priorities. On other days, any tasks that aren't part of the other projects -- things on the w3 action list -- are done in w3 time. I also have another hour scheduled during the day for email, urgent INTERRUPTIONS (yay -- I have a way to handle interruptions!), and w3 tasks. This time slot can move around if a fire requires an action at a specific time. Beyond these set-aside amounts of time, I strongly discourage w3 work.
p-day is Saturday.
Non-research project planning
- Defining purpose and principles (goal and constraints)
- Outcome visioning
- Brainstorming (how to get from here to outcome)
- Organizing
- Identifying next actions
Research project planning
This eight-step process is for the initial phase of a research project -- the phase that lasts from the initial idea until the first internal draft. At its core, it is focuses on outcomes and simple/efficient processing.
This method is my own hybrid between the process in Getting Things Done and the scientific method. There are a few key aspects for me in this process. The first is explicitly taking time at the onset to explore the project informed with a big-picture background gathered in a short amount of time. The second is a division of design between the simplest case and the full case, which is anything more detailed than the simplest case. The third important piece is explicitly creating a step of preparing for data analysis. This is often time-consuming and inexplicitly defined in my work, so I felt it was important to honor it with a description and explicit goals that are valued as part of the overall process. I also felt it was important to describe the preparation process before delving into it with the goal of not over-complicating it. The fourth important piece is a focus on a complete internal writeup as the first overarching goal. This is important both to see my progress and to be able to get input from others at various stages of work. The fifth important piece is explicit times to solicit feedback from others.
The first two steps, identify and explore, comprise the first two steps of the Getting Things Done project planning workflow, defining purpose and principles and outcome visioning. I felt this workflow was more concrete and illustrative for a research project startup process. The design step of this process comprises both the brainstorming, organizing, and defining next action steps of the Getting Things Done workflow.
Identify. Identify a question from general curiosity, experience, or a suggestion. Start a project writeup document.
Explore. Explore the question.
- Do a preliminary -- 1-2 hour -- literature review. Document findings in the project log and, if they're relevant, in the background section of the project writeup document. Include references. How to do a 2 hour lit review??
- If necessary, refine the question to make it a research question. Start the executive summary page of the project writeup document -- "the goal of this project" paragraph.
- Form a hypothesis/prediction. It is best if this includes target figures as illustrations. Fill in the hypothesis paragraph and target figures section of the project writeup document.
- Fill in the personal gain section of the project writeup document.
Design. Design an experiment/workflow. Do this at two levels: simplest and full. This amounts to filling in the methods section of the project writeup document: data collection, expected data, data analysis logical outline, and data preparation for analysis. If it helps to divide this into smaller pieces, use steps 3-5 of the Getting Things Done project planning workflow: brainstorm, organize, identify next actions.
- Fill in details of method section of project writeup document
- Write summary paragraph in executive summary of the method
- Fill in goal dates in the project goal table (copy from the template below)
- Solicit feedback.
- Revise or explore more if necessary.
Collect. Collect data for simplest experiment/work.
Prepare. Prepare data for simplest analysis.
Analyze. Analyze data according to the simplest workflow, recording process, results, and observations in the appropriate sections of the project writeup document.
Write. Refine the project writeup document -- it should now contain all sections of a paper: background, methods, analysis, discussion, and references. Writing in the project writeup document should happen throughout the above process. This stage is just base refinement so it can be understood by someone outside of my brain.
Talk. Solicit feedback to determine next steps and revisions.
| w1. xxxx | w2. xxxx | |||||
| goal date | achieve date | milestones | goal date | achieve date | milestones | |
| Identify | x/xxxx | x/xxxx | ||||
| Explore | x/xx/xxxx | 1. xxxx (x/xx/xxxx) 2. Need: xxxx | ||||
| Design | x/xx/xxxx | |||||
| Collect | x/xx/xxxx | xxxx | ||||
| Prepare | x/xx/xxxx | |||||
| Analyze | x/xx/xxxx | |||||
| Write | x/xx/xxxx | |||||
| Talk | x/xx/xxxx | |||||
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