08.21.08
Frantic days, exhausted nights
My to-do list and projects lists are expanding at a mind-boggling rate these days. It seems as though I just get a few things done and checked off my lists, then five more tasks magically materialize to replace them. I’m juggling more balls than a circus clown on speed. I have tasks and reminders scribbled on scraps of paper, recorded in my Outlook tasks, and listed on my Excel spreadsheet. Some are overlapping while others are listed only once– and subject to being lost among the growing piles on my desk (again!). Will I ever return to the peaceful days when I sometimes grew bored with routine tasks and long gaps between special projects? Most days now there’s hardly time for me to catch my breath, much less daydream.
I haven’t written much in this blog lately because I’m finding it impossible to relax long enough so I can think, which enables me to write, which enables me to think some more. My brain needs periods of quiet and introspection in order to digest and absorb the dozens of random thoughts running wild through it. Writing helps me to lasso those thoughts into an orderly herd, so I can lead them to productive outcomes at work. Without introspection and writing, those thoughts get jumbled up and tumbled up, stepping all over each other in their frantic dance. If too many of them are dancing about in my brain, no to-do list or priority list can tame them. The end result– my brain freezes up and I accomplish nothing. I feel like a scratched track on a CD– skip, skip, skip– no forward movement through my day.
I collapse into bed every night, despite having so many thoughts buzzing through my head up until it hits the pillow. I find myself hungering for the weekends, hoping I can rest and renew my energy, both physical and mental, before I face yet another hectic week. I often wonder how long I will be able to keep up with this breakneck pace of managing so many new projects, most of them with no end in sight. I know I should be thankful for my job when so many people are losing theirs in this economy. It’s just that sometimes it’s hard to appreciate what you have when you’re so close to the beast that you can’t see the whites of its eyes.
05.29.08
Spreadsheet to-do-list
I recently dug up and refreshed a to-do list I had created in Excel, because from September to December of last year, it worked so well for me use a spreadsheet to keep track of big and small projects. When I first opened the file and looked it over, it was one very long list, with lots of stuff checked off and almost as much stuff still not checked off. I found it overwhelming to look at and darn near closed it up right then and there! I know I could have removed the rows with the checked off stuff, but I like to see that I’ve accomplished things, so that wasn’t the answer. I know it sounds dumb, but it works for me.
I decided to break the tasks into categories as tabbed sections, since I had roughly organized them this way they developed last fall. What better way to keep each list separate and more manageable, yet still together in one Excel file. I find that I like seeing the main categories on the tabs and viewing just one tab at a time, but with the others just a click away. It’s so much easier to focus on the tasks listed there and know how far along I’m coming on a big project. Just for the record– I’ve tried to organize my tasks in Microsoft’s Outlook by assigning them to categories, but every so often, my computer hiccups and rearranges my task list. Then I waste time trying to reconstruct the view so I can figure out where I left off.
I guess the thing I like about the spreadsheet method for my to-do list is that it doesn’t have annoying reminders. If I use Outlook and try to set deadlines on too many tasks, they seem to pop up at inopportune times and I end up ignoring the reminders. It’s too hard to predict that at 8 am the next day, I will definitely be doing a particular task, which will then be followed by an additional task with another reminder. If I can’t do a task as it was originally scheduled, I know I can move the reminder to another time or day, but then I’m just putting it off, sometimes indefinitely. I’m very good at procrastinating on my own, so I don’t need help from any software.
I do try to use reminders sparingly, though, so I won’t forget to do really important things, like attend meetings or do something by a specific date. I find that I tend to pay more attention to those types of reminders and never ignore them or put them off. It’s a rare occasion that I miss a meeting or turn in paperwork late when I set a reminder for it. For everything else, the spreadsheet gives me much more flexibility to work my tasks into my schedule, rather than schedule tasks into my workday.
05.21.08
To-do lists
Only a packrat like me can accumulate multiple to-do lists. I recently mentioned the scraps of paper I’ve been collecting with tasks and projects to do and the need to put them all together. In trying to think of a location to compile them (and do them- including checking them off), I remembered the Excel spreadsheet I started last fall. I still had it on my thumb drive, so I plugged it into my laptop and began transferring tasks and projects from scraps of paper to the spreadsheet.
It was nice to see all the things I’d accomplished last fall. I knew I felt busy at the time and the spreadsheet confirmed it– it had lots of stuff checked off. Ahhh, a rare sense of accomplishment. But when I opened the file, I noticed the last time I updated it was 12/4/07. Hmmm…. had it really been that long since I last used it? I discovered a few tasks and projects that weren’t checked off and yes, they still needed to be done. Darn–forgetting them didn’t make them go away.
I know I should work harder at delegating things to other people, but it’s a skill I’m not very good at. There are lots of things at my library where I’m the only one trained or authorized in the software to do them, so delegation isn’t as simple as picking an employee and saying, “Here- this is your project. I want it done by…” If I get too many questions when I assign something, I feel like I didn’t explain it clearly enough or train the person well enough so they could work on it independently.
I also need to break down bigger projects into smaller steps that either have deadlines or target dates, so I can know if I’m on track or way off it. I recently worked with an employee to do this for our digitization plan and we both like having a general timeline in which to begin digitizing and cataloging local maps and photographs. I need to go back to my other big projects that have been hanging around my neck like an albatross and put them on timelines as well. Maybe that will give me an incentive to squeeze them in and stay on track– and maybe even complete them before I retire decades from now.
02.11.08
Little pieces of paper
One of the things I’m good at producing is dozens of scraps of paper with lists of things I need to do. You’d think with all the electronic organizers and to-do lists I have access to I’d have found a better way by now, but that’s not the case. Somehow paper seems to work better for me– at least for the moment. I have to find a way to capture random thoughts racing through my head: current projects, people I need to contact, files I need to load.
Last week, after filling up 4 new scraps of paper (front and back!) with to-do lists, I decided to go through a collection of those paper scraps in my desk drawer. I wanted to see if any were aged enough to be thrown away. Surprisingly, some were. I threw away several and was amazed at how feelings of relief replaced those paper scraps.
The thing that scares me most about creating too many little scraps of paper is that it reminds me of my grandmother when her mind started slipping. We would visit her and find scraps of paper with nonsensical stuff written on them. None of us could decipher any of the words, but they made sense to Grandma when she wrote them. She was obviously capturing her random thoughts just like I do. Unfortunately, they were outward signs of the inward deterioration of her mind. I hope my scraps of paper continue to have meaningful scribbles on them now and in the future.
