Discussion Forum > Cutting time horizons
Agreed. I get more done when I say, "This time is so short I can only do three things," then when I say, "This time is so long, I can do a lot, including this interesting shiny thing."
June 20, 2017 at 16:34 |
Cricket
Cricket
I have told my managers that the dirty little secret to managing me is to tell me you need it by Friday. If you tell me I have till the end of the month, then you won't be seeing it anytime soon.
June 21, 2017 at 15:08 |
Mike Brown
Mike Brown
This makes me think of the procrastionation equation. Keeping the time periods of your goals short increases motivation. That is one of the 3 variables you can try to adjust to decrease procrastination.
The Procrastination Equation (from the book of the same name) is:
Motivation = (Expectation x Value) / (Impulsiveness x Delay)
Motivation in this case is the opposite of procrastination.
Expectation is how confident you are that you can get the desired value from the action. Value is the size of the reward. So you can try techniques to increase these.
Impulsiveness would be our own tendency to delay action and Delay would be how long the wait is to get the reward (value). You can't do much about impulsiveness very well although there are a few things you can do. You can decrease delay by working with shorter time horizons.
Here's a summary of The Procrastination Equation.
http://lesswrong.com/lw/jyg/outline_summary_the_procrastination_equation/
In terms of this thread (cutting time horizons):
> Goals should be:
> * Short-term
> ** This reduces the Delay part of the Procrastination Equation.
> ** Day goals are good
> ** 5-10 min. goals if main challenge is getting started
In context, for day goals I think he's referring to working systematically:
> Goals can be inputs (time worked) or outputs (words written) or both (e.g., whichever comes first)
The Procrastination Equation (from the book of the same name) is:
Motivation = (Expectation x Value) / (Impulsiveness x Delay)
Motivation in this case is the opposite of procrastination.
Expectation is how confident you are that you can get the desired value from the action. Value is the size of the reward. So you can try techniques to increase these.
Impulsiveness would be our own tendency to delay action and Delay would be how long the wait is to get the reward (value). You can't do much about impulsiveness very well although there are a few things you can do. You can decrease delay by working with shorter time horizons.
Here's a summary of The Procrastination Equation.
http://lesswrong.com/lw/jyg/outline_summary_the_procrastination_equation/
In terms of this thread (cutting time horizons):
> Goals should be:
> * Short-term
> ** This reduces the Delay part of the Procrastination Equation.
> ** Day goals are good
> ** 5-10 min. goals if main challenge is getting started
In context, for day goals I think he's referring to working systematically:
> Goals can be inputs (time worked) or outputs (words written) or both (e.g., whichever comes first)
June 22, 2017 at 17:00 |
Don R
Don R
My son won't do things with fuzzy deadlines. It's Now or Not Now. Later doesn't exist in his brain. At least he recognizes it and doesn't promise to do things later.
June 23, 2017 at 2:27 |
Cricket
Cricket
<< If you can’t get everything “done” at your current Sprint length, consider shortening your Sprint. If it’s two weeks, try one week. If you can’t get anything done in one week, try one day. If you can’t get anything done in one day, just rebuild the system in one day. If you can’t rebuild the system in one day, fix that problem. >>
<< Why would you shorten a Sprint when it’s already too short? As Chet Hendrickson put it long ago, “The problem isn’t that we don’t have enough time, it’s that we have too much to do.” >>
http://ronjeffries.com/articles/017-02ff/small-topics/
This reminded me of the Next Hour no-list system.