* Also note that when you're having an off day, it's noble to do boring stuff from the to-do list, even if you don't really feel like doing it.
-- Note in timelog, 2017-10-29
Which is all well and good, but then I realized that if I'm constantly struggling to prioritize things or failing to carve out big enough chunks of time to be able to focus on work then I'll just stress out and get nothing done after all, including my own projects.
I was super duper stressed out on Tuesday. I had taken the day off from work to do phone banking for Ginger. But when it came time to answer the call from CallFire I couldn't bring myself to answer it, so I spend the day floundering on Factorio terrain generation instead. I did end up sending a bunch of "Go vote!" texts and felt good about that.
At today's Steve+Dan meeting Steve brought up that he was unhappy with the way I'd handled ALIFE-17, putting it off and putting it off and commiting a change to skip a bunch of unit tests at the last minute. "Yeah, I know I didn't handle that well and I felt bad about it at the time", I said, "I have felt rather frazzled."
I blamed my failure to follow a consistent schedule, resulting in not being able to focus on one job at a time because it's not clear which one I should be focusing on. We did some brainstorming and decided that it would be worthwhile to try changing my schedule to a bi-weekly one so that I work on Factorio for 5 business days, then EIT for 5 business days. Which 5 days those are we can change around as long as we schedule it ahead of time and communicate the schedule to everybody.
Proposed schedule:
| Sunday | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Saturday |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5 - Me | 6 - EIT | 7 - Fac | 8 - EIT | 9 - EIT | 10 - Fac | 11 - Me |
| 12 - Me | 13 - Fac | 14 - Fac | 15 - Fac | 16 - EIT | 17 - EIT | 18 - Me |
| 19 - Me | 20 - EIT | 21 - EIT | 22 - EIT | 23 - Fac | 24 - Fac | 25 - Me |
Repeating weeks 12-25 until we decide on something else.
Since I don't expect that I would actually make it through the week without getting to work on my own projects (screwing boards together and programming microcontrollers is so satisfying) I also want to set aside a couple of weeknights for workshop night. We already have Thursday. Maybe make Monday a one of those, too. But lately we're having SA meetings on Monday, which really doesn't leave any time for my own thing. And Tuesday is wedding planning night. So I'll have to figure that out.
It will probably help to get up earlier and get to work by 10AM on EIT days. That way I can feel not guilty about leaving work by 6 and getting home and doing my own thing.
To summarize:
- Make a schedule
- Communicate it to everybody
- Stick to it
One thing I want to make a part of my routine is fixing the to-do list. How about Sunday evening? I'll put this on my calendar.
I have a bit of a rash lately and I don't know why. Is it the chili?
I'm writing this entry from the Dane County Board meeting. Nick just made a really good talk about the jail being a bad use of money. If they build this stupid jail it won't be for lack of good talks on our part. Oh no now Rusk is talking.