Discussion Forum > One thing at a time
Dear Lyudmila
My recommendation about projects is that projects with deadlines (explicit or implied) should be commenced at the beginning of the time available to complete them, rather than left to the end of the period. This is because it allows you to use the principle of "little and often" to produce higher quality work, and also avoids last minute disruptions.
Projects without deadlines (that is to say things which you need or want to "get around to sometime") are best done one at a time.
It is absolutely essential though that you only take on projects that you have time to do properly. You musn't just take on any project that presents itself to you.
To answer your question what percent of the day should be spent on the Will Do list, it entirely depends on what sort of work you are doing. However please note in DIT you should not be attempting to prioritise at the task level. The aim of DIT is to get everything done, so *all* your current work should be on your Will Do list. If you can't keep up, then you are taking on too many projects.
Remember: The question is not what priority something is, but whether you should be doing it at all.
My recommendation about projects is that projects with deadlines (explicit or implied) should be commenced at the beginning of the time available to complete them, rather than left to the end of the period. This is because it allows you to use the principle of "little and often" to produce higher quality work, and also avoids last minute disruptions.
Projects without deadlines (that is to say things which you need or want to "get around to sometime") are best done one at a time.
It is absolutely essential though that you only take on projects that you have time to do properly. You musn't just take on any project that presents itself to you.
To answer your question what percent of the day should be spent on the Will Do list, it entirely depends on what sort of work you are doing. However please note in DIT you should not be attempting to prioritise at the task level. The aim of DIT is to get everything done, so *all* your current work should be on your Will Do list. If you can't keep up, then you are taking on too many projects.
Remember: The question is not what priority something is, but whether you should be doing it at all.
March 12, 2008 at 11:28 |
Mark Forster
Mark Forster
Dear Mark,
Thank you very much for your detailed response, I really appreciate it. I think I understand now what you mean by 'one thing at a time', but I'd like to clarify things further regarding my second question.
You are saying: "However please note in DIT you should not be attempting to prioritise at the task level. The aim of DIT is to get everything done, so *all* your current work should be on your Will Do list. If you can't keep up, then you are taking on too many projects".
I understand that there should be no prioritisation at the task level, but the concept of all current work is still somewhat vague with large multi-task projects with remote deadlines (such as writing a dissertation - that's what I am doing at the moment). I have many-many little tasks related to my research that I could put on my will-do list, but I can't decide exactly how many is optimal. I suppose it depends on my estimate on how long it will take to complete each of them.
So here is my thinking. Suppose I decide that I have 10 hours a day available for work. From these 10 hours I subtract the length of any scheduled events, lunch and some repeated work (such as e-mail, incoming paper, tidying up my desk, planning the next day). It gives me X hours to do my dissertation-related tasks. So what percentage of X should I use as the time available for tasks? My mistake in the past was to assign tasks to 100% of X, or even worse, I would plan things for the whole 10 hours forgetting about scheduled events and recurring tasks. Combined with overoptimistic estimates of how long it will take me to complete my tasks, the misestimation was disastrous. Therefore I definitely need to be more conservative in my planning, but I am not sure by how much... What would you suggest?
Thank you very much for your detailed response, I really appreciate it. I think I understand now what you mean by 'one thing at a time', but I'd like to clarify things further regarding my second question.
You are saying: "However please note in DIT you should not be attempting to prioritise at the task level. The aim of DIT is to get everything done, so *all* your current work should be on your Will Do list. If you can't keep up, then you are taking on too many projects".
I understand that there should be no prioritisation at the task level, but the concept of all current work is still somewhat vague with large multi-task projects with remote deadlines (such as writing a dissertation - that's what I am doing at the moment). I have many-many little tasks related to my research that I could put on my will-do list, but I can't decide exactly how many is optimal. I suppose it depends on my estimate on how long it will take to complete each of them.
So here is my thinking. Suppose I decide that I have 10 hours a day available for work. From these 10 hours I subtract the length of any scheduled events, lunch and some repeated work (such as e-mail, incoming paper, tidying up my desk, planning the next day). It gives me X hours to do my dissertation-related tasks. So what percentage of X should I use as the time available for tasks? My mistake in the past was to assign tasks to 100% of X, or even worse, I would plan things for the whole 10 hours forgetting about scheduled events and recurring tasks. Combined with overoptimistic estimates of how long it will take me to complete my tasks, the misestimation was disastrous. Therefore I definitely need to be more conservative in my planning, but I am not sure by how much... What would you suggest?
March 12, 2008 at 13:45 |
Lyudmila
Lyudmila
Dear Mark,
Please elaborate on this, since I also happen to share Lyudmila's question.
Please elaborate on this, since I also happen to share Lyudmila's question.
March 17, 2008 at 15:41 |
Rafael
Rafael
Dear Lyudmila
Apologies for not answering this before. It appears to have got buried under a lot of comments/discussions which came in at the same time.
Scheduling your work in the way you suggest is a perfectly valid approach to time management but it is not DIT.
If you want to schedule in this way, then you need to pay attention to two things:
1) Aim initially at leaving 20% time unscheduled. Increase this if you fail to finish your list consistently each day. Decrease it if you find you are getting through your list with time to spare.
2) Always write down your estimate of how long a task will take. Then write down how long it actually took and compare the two. This will greatly increase your ability to estimate.
However if you want to keep to the DIT approach then the definition of "current work" is all tasks relating to current projects that are available to be done at the moment. With a project like writing a dissertation you would normally divide the project into phases, and deal with each phase in turn.
Apologies for not answering this before. It appears to have got buried under a lot of comments/discussions which came in at the same time.
Scheduling your work in the way you suggest is a perfectly valid approach to time management but it is not DIT.
If you want to schedule in this way, then you need to pay attention to two things:
1) Aim initially at leaving 20% time unscheduled. Increase this if you fail to finish your list consistently each day. Decrease it if you find you are getting through your list with time to spare.
2) Always write down your estimate of how long a task will take. Then write down how long it actually took and compare the two. This will greatly increase your ability to estimate.
However if you want to keep to the DIT approach then the definition of "current work" is all tasks relating to current projects that are available to be done at the moment. With a project like writing a dissertation you would normally divide the project into phases, and deal with each phase in turn.
March 26, 2008 at 10:40 |
Mark Forster
Mark Forster
Dear Mark,
Thank you very much for your response and advice. I very much like the concepts underlying DIT, however I don't always find it possible to strictly follow DIT when writing a dissertation. The thing is that the amount of work I have tends to change in a non-linear fashion. For example, once I complete some part of the data analysis I face myself with many things that need to be done in parallel such as doing more literature review, updating bibliography, writing up results, creating graphs etc. In other words, the principle 'the amount of incoming work should equal the amount of outstanding work' tends to be naturally broken from time to time. And then when my supervisor asks me a question: "So when will I see next section written up?" in order to answer it I need to do some forward planning and calculations... I'm not sure how I can stick to DIT in situations like this. If you can think of a way to do it - I would appreciate your advice.
Thank you,
Lyudmila
Thank you very much for your response and advice. I very much like the concepts underlying DIT, however I don't always find it possible to strictly follow DIT when writing a dissertation. The thing is that the amount of work I have tends to change in a non-linear fashion. For example, once I complete some part of the data analysis I face myself with many things that need to be done in parallel such as doing more literature review, updating bibliography, writing up results, creating graphs etc. In other words, the principle 'the amount of incoming work should equal the amount of outstanding work' tends to be naturally broken from time to time. And then when my supervisor asks me a question: "So when will I see next section written up?" in order to answer it I need to do some forward planning and calculations... I'm not sure how I can stick to DIT in situations like this. If you can think of a way to do it - I would appreciate your advice.
Thank you,
Lyudmila
April 12, 2008 at 17:20 |
Lyudmila
Lyudmila
Dear Lyudmila
To some extent the answer to your question is a matter of experimentation by yourself to find the way that works for you. But I think you need to bear in mind the following points:
1) The amount of work that presents itself may vary, but the amount of time you can give it doesn't (to the same extent). So one way or another you have got to organise the work in such a way that what you are actively working on remains fairly constant.
2) Work should be prioritised at the project level, not at the task level. There's no reason at all why you can't do forward planning and calculations. In fact that's the only way you are going to be able to bring projects on-line in a way that will balance the work-load. In my reply above I spoke of "current projects" - I should perhaps have called them "active projects". It's up to you whether a project is active at the moment or not.
To some extent the answer to your question is a matter of experimentation by yourself to find the way that works for you. But I think you need to bear in mind the following points:
1) The amount of work that presents itself may vary, but the amount of time you can give it doesn't (to the same extent). So one way or another you have got to organise the work in such a way that what you are actively working on remains fairly constant.
2) Work should be prioritised at the project level, not at the task level. There's no reason at all why you can't do forward planning and calculations. In fact that's the only way you are going to be able to bring projects on-line in a way that will balance the work-load. In my reply above I spoke of "current projects" - I should perhaps have called them "active projects". It's up to you whether a project is active at the moment or not.
April 15, 2008 at 8:19 |
Mark Forster
Mark Forster
And another question. From your experience, how many percent of your available daily time should be covered by the Will-do list? In order to always complete it one needs to be somewhat conservative in the estimates, and allow sufficient time for interruptions. From your experience - what's the right balance between being conservative, but also not too easy on yourself?