Discussion Forum > Big Rocks Last Planning
Hi Cricket.
I've been in a Covey state of mind the past few weeks, so I appreciate your post. I've found that deadlines, imposed by me, are rarely followed. This is a weakness on my part. I should note that I'm working on this, and hope to "make a promise (to myself), and keep a promise" a reality. In the meantime, real deadlines still work wonders. I'm writing a book, and left to my own meandering, would continue to write this book for years. However I've accepted two speaking gigs in the Fall, both of which have to do with my book. To show up empty handed would be embarrassing (and financially foolish). I emailed my editor and informed them about the deadline. So now I have a real deadline and personal accountability on the line. This will get done.
I've been in a Covey state of mind the past few weeks, so I appreciate your post. I've found that deadlines, imposed by me, are rarely followed. This is a weakness on my part. I should note that I'm working on this, and hope to "make a promise (to myself), and keep a promise" a reality. In the meantime, real deadlines still work wonders. I'm writing a book, and left to my own meandering, would continue to write this book for years. However I've accepted two speaking gigs in the Fall, both of which have to do with my book. To show up empty handed would be embarrassing (and financially foolish). I emailed my editor and informed them about the deadline. So now I have a real deadline and personal accountability on the line. This will get done.
July 4, 2013 at 12:03 |
avrum
avrum
And, I'm now experiencing the downside, although when I typed out what I've accomplished it doesn't look nearly as bad. (Now deleted.)
If you're used the luxury of relaxing on the first day of the work-week, a holiday Monday throws things off. So does more time than anticipated on a very important big rock (shopping with daughter), adding a forgotten project to the milestone chart (deadline is the end of vacation, which means I have to do all of the work before, and find someone to do the last steps while I'm away), and getting a cold.
I'm spinning my wheels today. It feels like I should ignore the "priorities" and go with whatever my gut tells me I'll actually get done.
If you're used the luxury of relaxing on the first day of the work-week, a holiday Monday throws things off. So does more time than anticipated on a very important big rock (shopping with daughter), adding a forgotten project to the milestone chart (deadline is the end of vacation, which means I have to do all of the work before, and find someone to do the last steps while I'm away), and getting a cold.
I'm spinning my wheels today. It feels like I should ignore the "priorities" and go with whatever my gut tells me I'll actually get done.
July 4, 2013 at 13:59 |
Cricket
Cricket
Hi Cricket
It sounds like you're one of those people who can use the rush of the last minute crunch to your advantage. God, I wish I could do that also. I have to grind it out starting early because I can't trust my abilities to predict success in crunch mode. Plus, I don't trust outside contingencies to align with my intentions. Before the wreck, I was always heavily booked and lived in crunch mode. LOL! Even then, I didn't wait until the last minute. I just always kept a heavy calendar and goals list. If I'm going to fail, I want it to be an honest attempt, not pushing fate. LOL!
p.s. I envy people like you. My worry prevents it. And my guilt prevents it. My sister did her entire Master dissertation in less than two weeks. I was amazed and secretly envious that she had so much confidence in her abilities to play volleyball and softball, go to the movies et al instead of working on her dissertation. She rented a beach house for three months and didn't write one sentence on her dissertation. LOL! She used to call it "coming through in the clutch." LOL!
It sounds like you're one of those people who can use the rush of the last minute crunch to your advantage. God, I wish I could do that also. I have to grind it out starting early because I can't trust my abilities to predict success in crunch mode. Plus, I don't trust outside contingencies to align with my intentions. Before the wreck, I was always heavily booked and lived in crunch mode. LOL! Even then, I didn't wait until the last minute. I just always kept a heavy calendar and goals list. If I'm going to fail, I want it to be an honest attempt, not pushing fate. LOL!
p.s. I envy people like you. My worry prevents it. And my guilt prevents it. My sister did her entire Master dissertation in less than two weeks. I was amazed and secretly envious that she had so much confidence in her abilities to play volleyball and softball, go to the movies et al instead of working on her dissertation. She rented a beach house for three months and didn't write one sentence on her dissertation. LOL! She used to call it "coming through in the clutch." LOL!
July 4, 2013 at 16:16 |
learning as I go
learning as I go
p.s.
When I was a medical illustrator we were put under the gun every time many researchers were either attending the same symposium or were meeting a publishing deadline. To add to the pressure, many of them trickled in their revisions to the last minute. We had to do 17 hour crunches. We'd block in 17 hours. We gave ourselves 4 15minute breaks and 2 half hour eating breaks. It was horribly stressful and energy draining but we had no choice because we didn't want to let the researchers down. The upside was that we mad lots of money on the side because they were desperate to meet deadline even though they were last minute types. We charged them dearly for our efforts. LOL! I always had a great vacation planned afterwards to keep me focused on doing my best work! LOL!
When I was a medical illustrator we were put under the gun every time many researchers were either attending the same symposium or were meeting a publishing deadline. To add to the pressure, many of them trickled in their revisions to the last minute. We had to do 17 hour crunches. We'd block in 17 hours. We gave ourselves 4 15minute breaks and 2 half hour eating breaks. It was horribly stressful and energy draining but we had no choice because we didn't want to let the researchers down. The upside was that we mad lots of money on the side because they were desperate to meet deadline even though they were last minute types. We charged them dearly for our efforts. LOL! I always had a great vacation planned afterwards to keep me focused on doing my best work! LOL!
July 4, 2013 at 16:26 |
learning as I go
learning as I go
p.s.
To put it into perspective, there were no computers to "save" our efforts or lettering programs. By the way, I HATED calligraphy. Many times when they had a revision, we had to do the drawings or paintings all over again. Stippling is a process where the entire drawing is done in small dots even lines. It's mind numbing to say the least. When they had too many revisions, we had to start all over. There's only so much white out that we could use. Also water colors and most had to be done over again. I always tried to convince them to want oils but Frank Netter ( a famous medical illustrator) used water colors and pastels. They saw these drawings and expected the same from us. He wasn't under the gun. He took his time. Non artists don't know the layers of producing such work. Using vellum et al was helpful but still it took time. Also we had to do accurate anatomical renderings of baboons, dogs, rats, et al. We relied heavily on the medical photographers as a reference. I also bribed a corpsman several times to let me sneak into the lab and do drawings of the dead animals' anatomy. LOL! We could have gotten fired. He could have gotten time in the brig. We were young and full of foolish bravado. LOL!
To put it into perspective, there were no computers to "save" our efforts or lettering programs. By the way, I HATED calligraphy. Many times when they had a revision, we had to do the drawings or paintings all over again. Stippling is a process where the entire drawing is done in small dots even lines. It's mind numbing to say the least. When they had too many revisions, we had to start all over. There's only so much white out that we could use. Also water colors and most had to be done over again. I always tried to convince them to want oils but Frank Netter ( a famous medical illustrator) used water colors and pastels. They saw these drawings and expected the same from us. He wasn't under the gun. He took his time. Non artists don't know the layers of producing such work. Using vellum et al was helpful but still it took time. Also we had to do accurate anatomical renderings of baboons, dogs, rats, et al. We relied heavily on the medical photographers as a reference. I also bribed a corpsman several times to let me sneak into the lab and do drawings of the dead animals' anatomy. LOL! We could have gotten fired. He could have gotten time in the brig. We were young and full of foolish bravado. LOL!
July 4, 2013 at 17:04 |
learning as I go
learning as I go
Well, that method worked well-enough for two weeks, but this week it's failing miserably. Way too much to do in the next few days! Also, all yesterday morning I avoided my more-important, more-urgent projects by doing "just a bit more of this time-waster". At lunch I decided to do a mid-importance, low-urgency project and my day turned around.
July 5, 2013 at 17:13 |
Cricket
Cricket
Avrum's "commit to an external deadline" approach is exactly what my grad school mentor (who was about 25 yrs younger than me and more knowledgeable than me because she was less up in her head than me) advised: submit the presentation proposal before you've collected the data. If she knew the presentation was in 6 months, then she had effectively timeboxed her project and knew what she needed to do in that time. If she waited till she had the data collected and analyzed and *then* submitted the proposal, it would be next year before she did all the work.
One of my grad school colleagues repeated a quote he'd heard that scholars use time the way sculptors use clay. It's an interesting image of time as something more malleable rather than scarce.
Cricket: When my day goes out of control, I sometimes ask myself if I'm in a high or low state of mind. When I'm in a low state, that's when outer chaos seems to reign. That's the state of mind where I've learned not to make big decisions, not to review my life choices, etc because that's the state of mind where my thoughts appear real and all it does it make me worried and frantic. I think narrowing down to achieve tiny victories is much better for the soul and begins the process for resetting the mind so it can settle down and float back up to that higher state. I think completing things, no matter how small, also aids in resetting the system.
One of my grad school colleagues repeated a quote he'd heard that scholars use time the way sculptors use clay. It's an interesting image of time as something more malleable rather than scarce.
Cricket: When my day goes out of control, I sometimes ask myself if I'm in a high or low state of mind. When I'm in a low state, that's when outer chaos seems to reign. That's the state of mind where I've learned not to make big decisions, not to review my life choices, etc because that's the state of mind where my thoughts appear real and all it does it make me worried and frantic. I think narrowing down to achieve tiny victories is much better for the soul and begins the process for resetting the mind so it can settle down and float back up to that higher state. I think completing things, no matter how small, also aids in resetting the system.
July 5, 2013 at 18:27 |
Mike Brown
Mike Brown
Mike, you're right about completing things no matter how small. When you feel good about yourself for completing something, it's easier to have the energy for the next thing. Just finished a nasty, multi-source cross-checking task, including several tests that need a few idle minutes to complete.
July 5, 2013 at 20:10 |
Cricket
Cricket
Mike and Cricket
You aught to feel gratitude that you can safely make those adjustments to accommodate your mental state or outside pressures. I used to take that for granted as the reason for planning in plenty of flexibility.
I suppose that I rarely ever depended on outside forces to give me impetus because I went through my younger years at school learning totally solo. No teacher or parental help. I just had to work it all out for myself how to be responsible yet also pursue my own passions and goals. The few times people finally did become interested, it irked me because I was forced to master these things myself. I didn't need any outsiders reminding me of anything. I learned a hell of a lot from the head of the medical illustration department about making judgements about meeting a deadline when 30 to 40 people all had the same deadline and many of them thought that their project was the most important. LOL! It took me a few years to finally be OK with strangers looking over my shoulder when I drew or painted and not think of them, only think of how I lined up my thoughts to peel out the work knowing that some of it would be done over again for whatever ****ing reason the docs couldn't make up their minds. LOL! I always kept a heavy schedule since I was a youngster but I never had to work on the whims of others' thoughts. LOL! The other variable was that I never knew how long I'd be in the medical library researching whatever I could learn about whatever they wanted me to draw. Although I had general medical education, it was a research facility that had us working on many different disciplines. I had to stop eating the night before surgery dates because I hated the smells when a person or animal got sliced open (especially if they were diseased). While fighting the dry heaves I had to listen to what the surgeon wanted me to draw. (It was rarely what was there. Medical photographers could do that.) Since these guys were from all over the nation, I had difficulty understanding some of their accents using terminology from a specialized field of medicine......cue to spend hours at the medical library until I felt comfortable that I knew what the doc was trying to project through my art.
I don't want you to think that I didn't respect the strict RMW (research medical waste) regulations. I never disected an animal that was a biohazard in any way. I would never endanger anybody involved in the waste disposal process. I always used an animal before the process of packing or freezing, etc. The only animals I learned from were the result of surgical research only. I careful sutured them back up to prevent any unnecessary fluid exposure.
I couldn't accurately follow those types of surgeries until I truly felt like I knew their anatomy. My only regret was that I endangered the corpsman's job as a medical photographer and the lab assistants' jobs for allowing me to sneak in the labs. By necessity the RMW is heavily regulated. It's serious stuff. I shouldn't have involved others. To this day, I regret that.
Bottom line: I wish I learned the skills to regulate my work to my mental state but I never did. I was always full throttle into my work and my hobbies. I probably overworked myself to prevent boredom. All my life I have dreaded boredom to an unnatural degree.
Now I'm trying to learn how to live more amicably with boredom.....
You aught to feel gratitude that you can safely make those adjustments to accommodate your mental state or outside pressures. I used to take that for granted as the reason for planning in plenty of flexibility.
I suppose that I rarely ever depended on outside forces to give me impetus because I went through my younger years at school learning totally solo. No teacher or parental help. I just had to work it all out for myself how to be responsible yet also pursue my own passions and goals. The few times people finally did become interested, it irked me because I was forced to master these things myself. I didn't need any outsiders reminding me of anything. I learned a hell of a lot from the head of the medical illustration department about making judgements about meeting a deadline when 30 to 40 people all had the same deadline and many of them thought that their project was the most important. LOL! It took me a few years to finally be OK with strangers looking over my shoulder when I drew or painted and not think of them, only think of how I lined up my thoughts to peel out the work knowing that some of it would be done over again for whatever ****ing reason the docs couldn't make up their minds. LOL! I always kept a heavy schedule since I was a youngster but I never had to work on the whims of others' thoughts. LOL! The other variable was that I never knew how long I'd be in the medical library researching whatever I could learn about whatever they wanted me to draw. Although I had general medical education, it was a research facility that had us working on many different disciplines. I had to stop eating the night before surgery dates because I hated the smells when a person or animal got sliced open (especially if they were diseased). While fighting the dry heaves I had to listen to what the surgeon wanted me to draw. (It was rarely what was there. Medical photographers could do that.) Since these guys were from all over the nation, I had difficulty understanding some of their accents using terminology from a specialized field of medicine......cue to spend hours at the medical library until I felt comfortable that I knew what the doc was trying to project through my art.
I don't want you to think that I didn't respect the strict RMW (research medical waste) regulations. I never disected an animal that was a biohazard in any way. I would never endanger anybody involved in the waste disposal process. I always used an animal before the process of packing or freezing, etc. The only animals I learned from were the result of surgical research only. I careful sutured them back up to prevent any unnecessary fluid exposure.
I couldn't accurately follow those types of surgeries until I truly felt like I knew their anatomy. My only regret was that I endangered the corpsman's job as a medical photographer and the lab assistants' jobs for allowing me to sneak in the labs. By necessity the RMW is heavily regulated. It's serious stuff. I shouldn't have involved others. To this day, I regret that.
Bottom line: I wish I learned the skills to regulate my work to my mental state but I never did. I was always full throttle into my work and my hobbies. I probably overworked myself to prevent boredom. All my life I have dreaded boredom to an unnatural degree.
Now I'm trying to learn how to live more amicably with boredom.....
July 5, 2013 at 22:23 |
learning as I go
learning as I go
p.s.
I owe my dad plenty for teaching me how to make a schedule using values, responsibilities and passions. If he hadn't taught me that, I don't think I would have done as well. I've gotten pretty good at scheduling my life's trajectory using what he taught me. I always tried to do my MITs according to importance before deadline unless I just got swamped with dozens of things with the same deadline. Scheduling didn't help at all there. I just had to just stay in crunch mode until it was done. If it was especially challenging, I'd imagine X project upgrading my skis, Y project paying for the lift tickets, et al. LOL! That made it more attractive to keep up the pace. If I have to use a stick to get it done, I always like to have a carrot waiting also.
I owe my dad plenty for teaching me how to make a schedule using values, responsibilities and passions. If he hadn't taught me that, I don't think I would have done as well. I've gotten pretty good at scheduling my life's trajectory using what he taught me. I always tried to do my MITs according to importance before deadline unless I just got swamped with dozens of things with the same deadline. Scheduling didn't help at all there. I just had to just stay in crunch mode until it was done. If it was especially challenging, I'd imagine X project upgrading my skis, Y project paying for the lift tickets, et al. LOL! That made it more attractive to keep up the pace. If I have to use a stick to get it done, I always like to have a carrot waiting also.
July 5, 2013 at 22:52 |
learning as I go
learning as I go
This happens both when I try to pick the important things from an unsorted list on-the-fly, and when I schedule each task and try to spread things across the week.
So, another thing to try: Big Rocks Last Planning
First, you need to know what the big rocks are and how long they'll take. Otherwise, it's asking for trouble.
Then schedule each rock for the last minute. Not the very last minute, but the last minute you can start and still reasonably expect to do it well. Plan in enough detail that you know that, if you wait until the schedule says to start each thing, you'll still get it done in time. Include, of course, lunch and break and fire-fighting time. If you know your daily or weekly energy pattern, take that into account. If you know you won't concentrate on Friday, the last minute for a complicated task due Monday is Thursday afternoon.
You start the week with a large block of time to happily work on what calls to you, without worrying about not having things done by Friday.
This is what I often do despite my best intentions, so it might be time to document and approve the actual procedure!