“Clock”-© James Wilson
Over the Christmas break I read this amazing book, “Rework” by the guys from 37Signals. After finishing it (and it's a short read so it didn't take long) I realized I had already been working on some of the things they point out. Anyone that knows me, knows I stretch myself a bit thin. I always have and probably always will. Whether it’s work, family or my own interests, there never seems to be enough time in the day. Lately though, I’ve been trying to change the way I look at and manage the things I need/want to do.
Most importantly is learning to let go. This is something I really have to work on. I always want everything to be just perfect and don’t always think about the fact that no one else will even notice the little things that jump out and scream at me. Time and again my boss will be telling me not to worry about some little thing and it serves as a reminder that sometimes I’m a bit over zealous.
It’s not only in the things I make but also in the things I do. I’ve always been that person trying to make it to every get together, every event, every moment of everything around me—and that just isn't possible. I’m especially prone to this when it comes to family. With divorces throughout my family, holidays have always been a marathon of jumping from house to house. When I got older and started dating, I wanted to spend time with that person’s family and it got even worse. When Sean was born, Stephanie and I made a commitment to only go to one get together for each holiday. Lately that’s become one for each individual day as holidays begin to spread out into days of celebrations.
Working with web development has also been a great influence on curbing my zeal. Due to the vast differences in browsers, systems, etc that affect the way sites appear to viewers, there's no guarantee that a site will look exactly the way I want it to. My earlier post about Redirecting IE6 Users is a perfect example. I probably could have spent hours and hours fixing bugs and using hacks to make the site work, but in the end it wouldn't be worth it. IE6 accounts for very little traffic to my site and I’d imagine most people running such an old browser wouldn’t be interested in the type of images I make anyway.
Memory is another issue. Do you ever find yourself entering a room and realizing you have no idea why you walked in? I do that all the time, and not just with rooms. Sometimes it’s the fridge, a browser window, a store, you name it and I’ve probably forgotten it. Lately I’ve been keeping a moleskin notebook on me at all times so I can jot down thoughts and ideas as they come to me. It doesn’t do any good when I'm standing in the kitchen with the freezer door open, but at least I can sketch out a design or write down notes for a blog post or just a list of things I need to do that day.
I was wary of the sudden surge in Moleskin fever, thinking it was just more buzz of “hipsters” wanting to go retro—and what’s more retro then pencil and paper, other than maybe a rock and stick—but they’ve really become the best way to keep track of everything. Even right now I’m looking at my collection of notebooks (some Moleskin, some generic) for notes I’ve made for this very post.
“Notebooks”-© James Wilson
I know it’s odd in this day to actually write something down, but I tried using my iPhone as a note keeper and it just didn't work. There is something fluid and organic about a pencil and paper that I don’t think technology will ever be able to reproduce. For instance, just using an app like Evernote, I had to wait for it to boot, type out my thoughts using a touchscreen keyboard, then ensure it was saved and synced before exiting out and going back to whatever app I was using before (probably Cut the Rope or Twitter). Through all this process the naturalness of the thought was lost and it became something else entirely.
Lastly is just taking time to decompress, whether it’s playing some game like Cut the Rope (is anyone else addicted?), reading a book, going for a walk or watching a movie. When I didn’t take time for myself, I wasn’t functioning at full capacity. This has probably the biggest drain on being able to actually get things done and continue managing my time.
Whenever I got stretched so thin I couldn't even think, I found I wasn't really working but more acting like I was. Instead of actually sitting down and working, I was just going through the actions. After an hour of “doing” something I would realize I hadn’t come up with a completed task. There were just so many thoughts swimming around in my head, I couldn't concentrate on one, bang it out and move on to the next one. So now when I find myself overwhelmed, I’ve begun walking away and doing something entirely non-work related (work being whatever I’m working on, not necessarily for my job).
Hopefully 2011 will a year of positive changes and one of them will be the ability to better manage my time.
Jimmy
PS, if you haven't, you really should read “Rework”. It's not just a book for designers or developers, it's a book for everyone and I guarantee you will benefit from it too.
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