Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with planning and productivity

discipline for on-schedule creativity

elephantsvanish — Mon, 10 Sep 2012 20:27:26 -0800

How do you set yourself up for maximum success when starting a creative project that requires consistent production? Or: I have to create multiple radio pieces a week! How do I best prepare myself to get out there and make them? I love radio, meeting people, and stories. I have an idea for an hour-long show about transit and urban communities, pitched it, and am starting it in a few weeks! I'd like at least 20 to 30 minutes of each show to be interviews, soundscapes, radio essays, and other composed or semi-composed radio pieces. The rest will be on-air interviews and music from folks in the area profiled, etc.. But I'll have to create these pieces every week for about 2.5 months. It'll have to become my guiding project, and perhaps an all-consuming one.

On the technical side of things, I have somewhat of a framework, however rough around the edges. I know a little about recording interviews, editing audio, composing a narrative with sound, etc. I also have several specific ideas and action steps for how to pursue them (basically making sure I show up to certain places, introduce myself to folks, and work with whatever I find!)

However! On the focus and discipline side of things, I am lacking. I am super excited to throw myself 100% into this project, to accept the failures and stress and craziness and just commit for the sake of committing. I'm there. But I would love to hear strategies folks have to keep themselves motivated, stimulated, and creative during a self-imposed period of Making Things. This project will involve putting myself out there a lot interpersonally, which I thrive off of (the hidden 'e' of my ENFP disposition comes out), and maybe there's a way to leverage those feelings? I also am a kind of sloppy perfectionist and can imagine myself getting really disheartened by not finding anything good on a certain week, etc.

tl;dr - What does it take to commit to producing, even in the face of time constraints and worries of quality and a million other little fears?

How can I organise my work day more effectively?

Catseye — Wed, 13 Jun 2012 06:56:25 -0800

I have a lot of autonomy in my job, along with a lot of responsibility. How can I get better at organizing my working patterns so that I get everything done, without always worrying that I should be working on some other task instead? Looking for recommendations for tactics, mindsets, books, apps, or whatever's worked for you. I work in academia, as a postdoc in the arts. For the most part, my job's wonderful and I love it - but there are a great, great many things to do. I'm in charge of a lot of the day-to-day running of a major project, with a team of assistants to oversee; I have some teaching duties alongside a professional development course in teaching to complete; and I'm also responsible for producing research, in the form of a set number of journal articles and so on, out of the big project. There are also a number of smaller but still important things to do (publicity, supervising a smaller project I got a grant for, and others). So, things are busy.

There are another two years left of this project, after which I'll need to get another job - hopefully, something more permanent. With the academic job market as fiercely competitive as it is, it's really important that this project goes well and that my CV has things to show for it, especially in terms of publications etc.

I don't mind working long hours, and I cope fairly well under pressure as a rule. In this job, though, I'm feeling increasingly like I'm behind on everything, even when I'm not. Irrational though it sounds, if I work on task A, I feel like I'm neglecting B and C and D and so on, no matter what task A is. I don't like the constant distraction of new emails arriving, but I feel guilty if I turn off my mail client in case there are important messages I need to reply to. It doesn't help that I don't like delegating stuff; I feel very responsible for the success of this project, and want to oversee everything to make sure it's done right. (The project is quite new ground for us and a steep learning curve for all involved, and I'm the one with the most experience at doing something similar in the past.)

This is a particular problem when it comes to producing my own research, writing articles and so on. This is really important, for the project as well as for my future career, but it's definitely something that gets pushed down the priority ladder. I think partly this is because at some level, I feel that it's a luxury to devote time to that, especially because it's an investment for my future career as much as it's a part of my current job. If I'm writing I can't be constantly on-call to supervise assistants and make project decisions and keep up with email discussions, and even though that writing will be important for the project in the long term, it always seems like there's something more immediately important to deal with instead. And it's a lot easier to do the project-running stuff than writing, so if I try to write and I'm not getting anything done, it's so so easy to think "well, not getting anywhere with this, may as well do some project-running stuff so I don't waste the afternoon as well." Recently I've set aside one day a week to devote to research, usually working at home. Out of the last four weeks, though, I've only managed to spend one of those days at home writing the whole day - it seems that there's always an unmissable meeting, or an urgent project thing to sort out (like, 'get the pay claims to the secretaries or the assistants won't get paid this month' level of important), and then I don't make time for research the next day, and the problem goes on.

I know I need to get a lot more ruthless about making time for research if I'm ever going to get much research done, and I know that I need to get a lot better at organizing my time in a way where I won't feel like I'm always neglecting eighteen other things for every task I'm working on. How can I get there? If you've been in a similar position, what's worked for you?

Resilience when the schedule changes.

SNWidget — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 11:51:12 -0800

How do I bounce back more quickly when plans go awry? I've got anxiety, depression, and ADHD, and I'm on meds for all of it. They're working at various levels, and I'm still tweaking them. I'm a PhD in the last year of coursework for a social science/music/education degree.

That out of the way, here's where I find myself. In the past year, I've finally realized that I need a schedule. I live and die by a schedule, and when the schedule is in place, I can have a life that looks very much like something normal. My wife's been instrumental in helping keep me on the rails with my schedules (without being a mother figure, thank God). With her help, medication, and some therapy, I can now usually make schedules, follow them, and do what I need to do.

It's not perfect, but it keeps me on a path.

And then something goes wrong.

Today, I was supposed to get up and start pulling articles for a literature review due next week. However, my internet was down. Instead of regrouping, thinking, "Ok, call to let the cable company know, then off to Starbucks," I got stuck on making the internet work. Like, without that, nothing else could go on. It was a block that I couldn't get around to save my life. By the time that got fixed (2 hours later), I was back to my old ways, playing Sporcle quizzes, Minecraft, blogs, and wasting time instead of doing what I was supposed to be doing.

That one little thing screwed up my schedule, and 5 hours later, I'm still not back on it. In fact, I've had to cancel other things I was supposed to do today because I feel so overwhelmed.

Part of this is end of the semester stress; I realize that. Part of it, though, is something I've always had trouble with. By learning to become more tied to schedules and lists for survival, I find that any unplanned deviation can really fuck with me. I can go on vacations without schedules and wander around, no problem. With my school/work schedules, though, things completely explode if something changes.

How do you get around this? From a completely messed up life with no schedule or plan to a more regimented life, how do I learn the adaptation ability? Where's the middle ground?

How do I tackle long term projects?

SNWidget — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 11:56:13 -0800

How do you take a big, long term project and break it into reasonable chunks? What's your process? Ok, I'm crappy at time management, and I'm dealing with a bunch of perfecitonism/ADD issues. I'm working on it with medication and therapy, but as of right now, I have a big project that needs to get done within the next 4 weeks or so.

I'm having trouble seeing the trees, when all I can see if the crazy, scary forest.

I'm a PhD student in the social sciences, and this specific project is a review of literature. I have some articles already. I have a spreadsheet. I feel like I've taken the right steps so far, but I just can't seem to find a path forward.

I realize that breaking things down is the way to go, but I can't seem to figure out how to make that work for me. It's like, if I can't finish the whole project in one sitting, it isn't worth it. I've tried to trick myself with individual tasks, but it always feels like part of that greater whole, and that's what fills me with dread/frustration.

I have problems with these amorphous, giant projects, and I never seem to be able to chunk them properly. I end up missing things, making the steps too ambiguous (find more sources!), or other things. I also don't know when I'm done with one section - am I finished writing this part, or is there more? Do I move on? I've tried to do this GTD style, but my "next actions" never seem to work. I put "Read through 5 articles in backlog" on my todo list, and it just sort of sits there, while more "pressing" things get done.

If you're good at this, how do you do it? What's your mental process when making these chunks? How do you deal with the fear that you might be missing something, or that the steps may not be as concrete as you'd hoped? How do I get a handle on big, long term projects?

Project Management Software For Frequently Changing Variables

salvia — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 13:07:56 -0800

It's time for yet another round of "What is the best project management software!" Come meet the final contestants. Particularly if you have used Microsoft Project or Open Workbench. I'm trying to figure out the best project management software. Microsoft Project, OpenWorkbench, and dotproject are the ones that have been recommended to me. Or something else? (Basecamp is out. We need Gantt charts.)

We have multiple projects with short- and long-term deadlines, all drawing on the same pool of staff members (and possibly additional staff).

The projects have lots of variables. Most tasks could be done to 98% perfection or 30% perfection, most tasks could be done faster if we threw money at them, and most projects have some "black box" phases where we don't know what we'll do or how long it will take (we can't even figure that out until X or Y happens).

Our best guesses about these variables change all the time, so I find myself repeatedly mapping out short- and long-term milestones, what tasks are involved, how long they will take, who could do them, and what the weekly schedule would then end up being to meet (or miss) the various deadlines.

I'd love to have a robust system that could automate calculations and let me play around with scenarios. What will happen if I do Task A the 2-week way or the 3-month way? How much extra help would I need to meet X deadline vs. Y deadline? How much sooner would we finish if we added entry-level staff, or more experienced staff (with the default being that I do everything myself)?

If you've used this software and have an opinion about which is best, I'd love to hear it. Microsoft Project looks like it'll do what we want. (I haven't yet figured out how to get Project to assign a task to "Person A if available, or if not, then Person B.") Or is there something with the same features as Project but with better algorithms for figuring out who is going to do the work as the number of staff assigned to the project shifts around? OpenWorkbench claims it has superior "resource leveling" and "auto-scheduling" -- do you think this is true? And is the learning curve much steeper?

Details: I'm running Windows XP. Something that allowed multiple people (all on our network) to work on the project planning files would be nice, but this is not a requirement. (An additional issue is that one or two of those potential people are on Macs, but my first priority is just getting something that works well.)

How do you stick to your long-term goals?

schroedinger — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 07:14:55 -0800

How do you maintain sight of your long-term goals? I chronically sacrifice long-term success for short-term gains and it's not working out for me. You know the tale of the Grasshopper and the Ant? Yeah, I'm the grasshopper. As soon as I make a resolution to, say, do my homework, eat more healthfully, stick to a budget, etc, within five minutes I've broken it. I can make all kinds of beautiful plans but I fall woefully short at implementation. On a day-to-day basis I just don't make the visceral connection that all the little breaks I give myself now create a big pile of crap in the long-term--though when it comes around to bite me in the ass it is all too clear.

I've tried to-do lists. I've tried GTD. I have ADHD, and have tried medication and therapy. I put little post-it notes everywhere. I can get the system to work for a few days--even a few weeks--and then I slack off or something comes up that breaks my concentration and it's all over. I think the problem comes at making the transition from the "good" behavior going from a temporary fix to incorporating it into my life.

I'm living like I'm five and there are no consequences, though they hit me again and again. It's gotta stop. What tricks do you use to activate your willpower and implement long-term change so you can ultimately realize your goals?

Great event planning + task management software?

scottandrew — Fri, 20 Apr 2007 14:12:51 -0800

Anyone know of any great event planning + task management software? I'm specifically looking for task management software with an emphasis on event planning. Basically, I need something that helps me with backwards-planning for repeat events. (Think: wedding planning. Reserve the hall, hire the caterer...rinse, repeat for each event.) Ideally it would allow re-usuable event "templates."

Example: I'm a performing musician, and I've got a show planned for three months out. I know that there are many things I need to do in advance of the show date:

-4 weeks: confirm date with venue
-3 weeks: send flyers
-2 weeks: send local press release
-10 days: notify local event calendars
-2 days: send "last-mile" reminder to mailing list
+2 days: send thank-you to venue and promoter
etc. (there could be a lot more here)

Currently I have to enter all of these tasks by hand into Google Calendar, set reminders, etc. It's maddening, especially when you multiply it by 10 shows a month. It would be great if I could define a template of tasks grouped around a type of event, so when I insert an event on a particular date, all the related tasks are inserted automatically into the calendar.

Email/SMS reminders are also key. I need the interruptions. I'd prefer web-based software over desktop apps, but I'd consider either.

I've already looked at Basecamp, Tracks, RememberTheMilk, etc. so far none of them have this templating ability.

Does such a beast exist?