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The thing’s hollow—it goes on forever—and—oh my God—it’s full of stars!
The thing’s hollow—it goes on forever—and—oh my God—it’s full of stars!
Arthur C. Clarke "2001: A Space Odyssey"
Arthur C. Clarke "2001: A Space Odyssey"
Last time, we touched on the topic of Multitasking vs. Switching Context and how it relates to the daily tasks of IT Project members. Now, I would like to focus on several tools and techniques that I use in my daily work, to carve out a bit of focus-time, while not neglecting any of my responsibilities.
Eisenhower Matrix
Not all tasks are created equal - some are less important than others, some require our immediate attention, while others can wait a while. That's where the Eisenhower Matrix (a.k.a. Urgent-Important Matrix) comes into play. The basic idea is to assign each task to one of four categories, as presented on the picture. Then you can focus on important and urgent tasks first, while not neglecting other categories.
To be frank, I don't use any formal way of keeping a record of this categorisation. I use it more of an internal checkpoint in my mind, before jumping into a new piece of work. Do I need to answer this email now? Do I need to check my webex channels for new messages? Is the team blocked if I don't review and merge the branches in the current sprint? Do I have to join the webinar, or can I just watch the recording later?
Consultant organising their calendar
Calendar Tetris
I have a lot of meetings in my calendar - especially since 2020 pushed us toward remote- or hybrid- work mode. Many of these meetings occur on a daily, or weekly basis (i.e. daily standup). If left unchecked, the meetings tend to bloat out any focus time you might have in your day - so it's wise to do some cleaning form time to time, and re-schedule things whenever possible.
When I first read about Tom DeMarco's Uninterrupted Hours concept (see previous post) I tried recording it for myself for a couple of weeks. I quickly noticed a distressing pattern. I started my work at 8AM, going through e-mails and messages for 20-30 minutes. Around 9:00 when everyone came to the office, we usually had a moment for a watercooler chat - nothing mayor, ten, maybe fifteen minutes. At 10:00 our team held the Daily Standup, after which everyone went back to their tasks. We've usually ordered our lunches to the office - so we've gathered orders and called the food vendor around 11AM. The food arrived around 12:00 or 12:30...
Do you see the pattern here? Although, almost 5 hours have passed between I've badged-in in the morning and the time I've finished lunch - I had at most 1 uninterrupted hour of work in that period! The solution? We shifted our daily to 11:30, and I've used the period of 11:00-12:30 to focus on emails. This way, I was able to fit 2-3 hours of focused work in the morning.
Nowadays, I tend to do one more thing - lump the same-theme meetings together. Project meetings, weekly updates during one half of the week (preferably) or day (more realistic); team meetings, 1on1s and administrative stuff during the other. This way, I can spare my brain some effort of digging up relevant information.
And last tip for a calendar feng-shui: Remember that you can always book a meeting with yourself. Show other people, that you're not to be disturbed by setting a meeting in your calendar, even if you'll be the only participant.
Notifications
Blinking lights and ringing bells - the dreadful focus-stealers!
When our company switched to Webex some time ago, I was horrified. Instead of a blinking icon on the Windows taskbar, a popup widow was displayed in the corner of my screen for each new message! The fact that it often obscured the useful parts of the screen was only a minor annoyance, compared to the fact that my eyes kept darting to this new popup with every new message instinctively - dozen of times every hour. I took radical steps to remedy this - I've muted all channels in the chat. Gradually I've enabled taskbar notifications for a selected few spaces, but kept "muted" as the default. The taskbar icon showing new messages on Webex or Outlook is usually enough during a typical day. If a faster reaction is needed, some heated debate is ongoing, or if I wait for urgent reply - I can always move the chat or mail window to a second screen and keep it there, glancing from time to time for any updates.
I took similar policy with my phone - it's muted all day long, except for a bit of highlight when a new message comes through and vibration on my smartwatch for incoming calls (which are rare). Unfortunately, the introduction of MFA in multiple internal and external portals has an unexpected downside - I have to pick up my phone and wait for the authenticator notification... so I can see all other notifications waiting for me already.
One last thing when it comes to chat messages - remember that many modern chat engines have a "Peek" option, where you can see the content of the chat without marking it as read. This can help you treat chats a bit more like e-mails, giving you the power to decide when to deal with them.
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