Ok cheesy title, but if you're anything like me, or are a freelancer of any kind, there is no question that you have experienced the To-Do list looming on a Monday morning, and said "ugh" to yourself or out loud. In that moment, there's nothing better than the feeling of all of those items being done. Thus the "Ta-Da" exclamation. Unfortunately there's no magic wand in the world that can make them all be done, so they have to be dealt with head on. One by one.
Last night I had an idea about how I could use one of the most common tools on computers (a calendar app, I use iCal on Mac OS X) to keep me on track and help me get through the day. Let me explain.
Sometimes, the best thing to do with a lot of projects on hand is to choose one to focus on, and work it till it's done, and get it off the list. Quite often this is the best way to go. But other times, what the stable of projects really needs is for each one to be ridden for a while today, run through it's paces, and shown a thing or two about not being done yet. Whhaa-ppssscchhh!! (did I just turn a "get on the horse" metaphor into a horse whipping??)
When I looked at this coming week from the perspective of Sunday late afternoon, I thought, "you know, I really need to find a way to focus a little bit each day on each of the projects that are on deadline." (usually I get into working on one project and then look up and it's suddenly like 6 o'clock in the eveninig.) And that's how I'm going to get through it all this week. I also know that I can do a lot with an hour. A solid hour of focus on ANY project (this goes for anything folks, homework, gardening, chores, leveling your warrior (did I say that? I haven't been able to play WoW for months now like I used to...), or even talking to your spouse or kids about that hard topic - whatever it is) can really get you somewhere. You know that adage, "for the price of a cup of coffee per day, you can have... yadda yadda" ... this is more like: "in the time it takes to watch one episode of Lost you can accomplish.... yadda yadda." Fill in your own blanks. So how to remember everything that needs doing, how to not get sidetracked or consumed by one project for too long, neglecting others, and how to hit each one for a period of time so they can all advance toward completion? That is the question.
So putting that theory to the test today, I thought, "hey... iCal might have the answer for this issue staring me right in the face!"
This is what I did. I have 6 entirely separate things that I have to work on today that are all very important and all need some attention. I decided to enter each one into iCal, in 1 hour blocks, and set an alarm for each one to notify me by sending me an email (you can use popup alerts or sounds, but I thought, "I'll use email." The reason is because my email app makes a "new email" sound whenever I get one, and I don't know about you, but whenever I get a new email, I go look to see who it is... in other words, if I have iCal email me, I will find it hard if not impossible to ignore it.
My email is set to check for new mail every 5 minutes, and I set each alarm for each 1 hour event to email me 8 minutes before the hour starts, and I made a promise to myself that each time I get an email today telling me what to start working on now, I will save and close what I'm working on and segue over to the next project. It's a combination of self discipline and technology reminding me what to do. It allows me to really focus for that hour and not worry that I'm ignoring the other things that need doing, and that's what normally happens when I just "jump into the pile" and start working, I feel stressed and worried about all the things I'm currently not doing.
So far it's working really well today, as it is 3 minutes before the next time block, and I'm just wrapping up this blog post. Sweet! Maybe this is something I'll keep doing. Sometimes, all it takes is spending a little quality time on each item on the list. What I'm finding so far is that sometimes, an hour is all it takes to get it totally done.
