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12/11/2008: "Time Management"
Time management, especially when working from home, can be a very tricky thing. Lots of people have lots of advice about it, but just a couple of Software Engineering notes.
It is very difficult to juggle a deep thought task (like good development), with interrupt driven work. Nowhere does this seem more prevalent than in Standards Development, or part-time management. Ideally, I was supposed to spend half my time on new work, and half my time updating the OMA-DS Specs, and being vice-chair. You spend a week at a meeting, have a lot of action items to take care of, some of which require investigation. You (typically) have to deal with Jet-lag, and make progress on real development. The thing is, if you aren't going to get at least a couple of hours of deep-thought time, how much real progress can you make? Same thing if you are supposed to be helping other people out - you get interrupts, lose your train of thought, have to get back into the groove, then its time for another interrupt.
These days, at least you can occasionally work from home, and have some time where you can block out interrupts. Before, I always seemed to get into this habit - when I got to the point of being the person to go to for certain answers, I would start coming in later and later. Of course it helps that I would probably find 25-26 hour days ideal, rather than 24. But anyway, by going in late, the afternoon would be the time for me to be interrupted, and the evenings would be the time for real development. Kind of enforced no-interrupt time, but its not a good family solution.
The other area that is hard to juggle is switching jobs, or looking for work (I'm not referring to being totally out of work). You have these near term requirements to meet (like finishing for a major release), and yet you have these high priority interrupts to talk to various contacts, or investigate potential leads.
And just to prove the point, I take a break on this, because the school bus came, and its time to go greet my youngest...