TDH: Portfolio » planning http://tdhedengren.com The portfolio of Thord Daniel Hedengren Fri, 31 Jul 2009 00:08:54 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 en hourly 1 Setting Weekly Goals to Increase Your Productivity http://tdhedengren.com/blog/setting-weekly-goals-to-increase-your-productivity/ http://tdhedengren.com/blog/setting-weekly-goals-to-increase-your-productivity/#comments Mon, 04 Aug 2008 14:00:02 +0000 Thord Daniel Hedengren http://tdhedengren.com/?p=469 Not that kind of goal...

Not that kind of goal...

It is not just todo lists and planning that can make your week a little easier, and increase your productivity. As you probably know, I have my own strategy when it comes to managin my week all figured out, I wrote about it in the post Using Weekly Planning to Increase Productivity, and unless you have read that one already, you probably should do so before moving on to this one.

By setting up weekly goals in conjunction with your todo lists and scheduled work, you’ll be able to get those more fluid tasks under control as well. This is how I do it.

What’s a Task and What’s a Goal?

It might not always be so obvious as one would think, to separate the tasks from the goals, and unless you know what you’re dealing with you won’t know how to manage it properly. That leads to further stress, since feeling insecure is never a good thing.

  • A task is something that gets done in one swipe, checked off, and that’s it. Tasks go on the todo lists and into your planning.
  • A goal is something more fluid, something you’ll have to return to, or work constantly on to achieve. You can’t really put it on the todo list because it’ll be hard to check off, and it’ll just add stress when you see it floating from one day to another, again and again.

There are a number of things that might be somewhere in-between. Let’s say I’m working with a new design. I can’t just put up “finish the design” on my todo list, so that implies that it is a goal. However, if I take my work on the project and split it into smaller pieces, I’ll have “deliver the mockup”, “send alternate logo”, “make dummy xhtml site”, and so on. These are things I could, and should, put on my todo list. I would have a hard time if I just put up “finish the design” as a goal, that would mean I’d have it hanging over me all the time, while splitting it up to make it into manageable tasks would make it a lot more rewarding to work with.

When to Use Goals

The whole idea with setting up goals is to remind you to get some things done beside the todo list. Goals shouldn’t be too imposing, and you shouldn’t beat yourself up if you feel they are sliding across the days. That’s the whole point, you just can’t put them properly on a todo list!

I’m following too many people, so I’ve set up a goal to go from following 370 people, to 350 this week

I’ve got a goal for this week, for instance. I’m a dedicated Twitter user (among other things), but sometimes I feel the amount of information is getting out of hand. I’m following too many people, so I’ve set up a goal to go from following 370 people, to 350 this week. I could say 300 right away, but I honestly don’t want to pressure myself into un-following too many people too fast, which could mean that I lost contact with the wrong people due to me being stressed about my goal.

I think that’s a nice goal. Something that I’ll be able to manage over time, without having to nail down on a particular day. I can just look at the update from someone I’d consider un-following, check the history, and then decide. I’ll do it as a part of my twittering, which is something I do daily.

Compare that to last week’s todo list, and you’ll see the difference.

The Essence of Setting Weekly Goals

I find that setting weekly goals helps me to increase my productivity. There simply just are things that won’t work on a todo list, but I still want to get a nice overview, without the extra pressure. You shouldn’t set your weekly goals to high, it is better to overachieve than to fail, and remember, we don’t want stress, so be sensible and start out small.

I hope this helped. If you have a way to manage your day, do share in the comments!

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]]> http://tdhedengren.com/blog/setting-weekly-goals-to-increase-your-productivity/feed/ 5 Using Weekly Planning to Increase Productivity http://tdhedengren.com/blog/using-weekly-planning-to-increase-productivity/ http://tdhedengren.com/blog/using-weekly-planning-to-increase-productivity/#comments Mon, 28 Jul 2008 14:26:46 +0000 Thord Daniel Hedengren http://tdhedengren.com/?p=413 Mondays suck, I regularly have that awful Garfield moment where I realize it is Monday, and that I just don’t want it to be. It’s not that I hate my work week or anything, or that the weekend is such a killer that I want it to never be over, it’s more of a feeling of having to pick myself up. All the way up.

I really hate Mondays.

The good part about these blasted days is that it is when I do my weekly planning, giving myself weekly goals, and a todo list. I have done this for years, trying various ways to manage this system, and have found a model that works for me. It might not work for you, but if it doesn’t, you can always port it to some other way of managing it, to fit your workflow.

Managing the Week

There are several ways you can manage your work. Some people like to plan on the hour, setting aside 0800-1100 for one thing, 1200-1300 to something else, and so on. I did that in the past, and while it did work somewhat, I always thought it to be pretty stressful when I had one of those not so productive days, while on the other hand I broke from planning when I was ahead of schedule.

These days, I plan my week on a day to day basis. I might have an inkling of an idea as to when I’ll do something, but not more specific than before or after lunch.

Moleskine notebooks, one of the finer things in life

Moleskine notebooks, one of the finer things in life

I set up a todo list for each day, planning the whole week. This will give me an overview, and that in turn will tell me right away if I’ve overstepped my bounds as to what I’m capable of that particular week. Sometimes I have, sometimes I haven’t.

I use a Moleskine calendar with a weekly view on each spread, where the actual weekdays are on the left side, and the right is a blank lined page for me to scribble on. I guess I could’ve gone with another calendar layout and write the actual todo’s on each day, instead of doing todo lists on the blank page, but this way I can keep my tasks aside to other notes, such as friend’s birthdays and other private occasions.

Naturally, whenever I complete something on the list, I cross it over. I also have a legend for things that are really really important, marking them with an exclamation mark, rather than the cross bullet I have before each item. It clutters it a bit, but not too much, and it reminds me of things that I need to get done.

The things that don’t make it on the list land on an index card instead. I’m using a paperclip to fix this to the next week, making sure I don’t forget about them when planning it.

Example: My Planning This Week

I just did the planning for this week. In a way, I think it is better to do it last thing Friday afternoon, before logging off for the day, since this will put your mind at ease and tell you that you won’t come in Monday morning to a blank sheet. Still, the last few weeks I’ve been starting my Monday with coffee and planning, and it works for me right now.

Monday

  • Write posts for The Blog Herald (freelance gig)
  • Do a post for tdhedengren.com
  • Send questions for BloggerTalks interview
  • Finish post for Devlounge started last week, publish
  • Clean out the weekend’s e-mail
  • Send confirmation for client gig, add rates and such stuff

Tuesday

  • Write posts for The Blog Herald (freelance gig)
  • Work on the new design for The Blog Herald
  • Glypting fix (client design work)
  • Lacado Photo fix (client design work)

Wednesday

Thursday

Friday

As you can see, it is a pretty slow week for me, except Monday. I have planned it that way, since it is summer after all. I’ve got things to do outside of work on Thursday, and I tend to keep Fridays as open as possible. Usually I would put a site launch on either Monday or Friday, but this week Friday’s not so good since I won’t be around on Thursday, and I wasn’t done last week, so I’m going to aim for the Blog Herald redesign on Wednesday. Hardly set in stone though, might just as well be a Monday launch next week. Relaunches are tricky, especially when you don’t own the site yourself.

I also have a handful of unknowns on my index card pushed from last week. Most of the things that I did push is crossed over on this card, as I move them to my planning, but not all of them, so they’re still hanging around as I see how the week develops. Right now, it looks like I’ll have some extra time on Friday, and if nothing funky happens today (being Wednesday), I’ll probably be able to insert some more things in my list.

As you can see, I’m not putting “check e-mail” or “read up on feeds” on the list unless it is something really substantial. I haven’t got “moderate comments” either, as these are things I manage throughout the day. A long todo list might give you an overview, but it is also stressful to look at, so I prefer to keep it short and sweet, sticking to the big stuff.

Wrapping It Up

So there you have it, my weekly todo system, as well as my planning for this week. I hope you can take something from this system and improve your own productivity with it. Besides the planning, I set up weekly goals as well, which I’ll cover in a later post.

I do realize that not all people will want to use physical calendars, and prefer to use todo applications instead, but there is really no reason why this shouldn’t work for you as well.

Do you have any tips to share when it comes to managing your workload? The comments are open, chip in, I’m always interested to hear how people solve the ever present issues of time.

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]]> http://tdhedengren.com/blog/using-weekly-planning-to-increase-productivity/feed/ 3 The Calendar Choice for 2008 http://tdhedengren.com/blog/the-calendar-choice-for-2008/ http://tdhedengren.com/blog/the-calendar-choice-for-2008/#comments Thu, 25 Oct 2007 13:34:58 +0000 Thord Daniel Hedengren http://tdhedengren.com/archives/198 A well used calendar is prettyI’m finding myself less eager to use digital calendars. Previously, I had all my planning in Google Calendar. That made sense because I needed to share it with co-workers, but when that need more or less disappeared I found myself wanting something else.

Enter the Mac and iCal, a nice enough calendar that comes pre-loaded in OS X. It’s good, it has a todo-list, something I missed in Google Calendar, having switched from Outlook in the first place. I’ve used iCal for quite some time, but now I want to move on.

I’m thinking analog calendars are better at the moment. Why is that?

Well, for starters, it’s completely portable. While I could use my mobile phone’s calendar, or perhaps obtain a PDA of sorts (aren’t they dead yet?), I just won’t. I want usability as well, and a tiny phone keyboard and screen just won’t get me that.

On the downside, I can’t very well sync it with my computer, address book, or colleagues in any easy way. Also, if I drop it, it’s most likely gone forever – a digital calendar is possible to backup at least.

Still, there’s something with an analog one. I’m thinking a pretty pricey one for 2008 actually. I haven’t completely committed to this yet though, being torn between The New Shit, and The Old School.

How do you handle these things?

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