Scheduling
How do you plan your tasks? I think there are two schools of thought about scheduling: “simultaneous” or “sequential”. All my life I was the type of person who worked on several projects simultaneously. Lately, maybe because I’m getting older, I tend to switch to working sequentially, otherwise – I feel – I won’t get things done at all.
Working simultaneously
I usually get bored easily, even with something as exciting as archaeology. Actually, I was never the type to stick to one thing. I would soon get bored or stuck, and then I would be able to move on to something else until I could get on with my first task. Sometimes I was working on three or four things at once. I have written about this in the past and called it the “Postpone the Problem” method. It worked quite well for me for a while, but lately it hasn’t.
At the moment I have the problem that more and more work is piling up. At the moment I am writing (or involved in writing) four papers at the same time. I am also writing a grant proposal (which is important at the moment) and of course planning my next conference visits. So my method of jumping between tasks somehow ends up with me doing very little for everything and not finishing on time.
Working sequentially
Then there are those people who have a task, finish it and then move on to the next one. I couldn’t do that for a long time, but lately I can see the benefits. What I lacked was the attention span for it, but recently I forced myself to do it and it actually worked. It just takes a bit more discipline and being okay with getting stuck from time to time. But I am slowly getting the hang of it.
It also helps me to prioritise tasks, because when I have to choose what to do first, I really have to think about what is the most urgent. At the moment I am doing that with my grant proposal, because it has to be submitted this year so that I can work on the project next year. So the urgency is quite clear.
Working at all!
SSo either I work differently now because I am getting older or because the tasks are more demanding. In the past, writing a term paper or coding a website was easy, whereas now the tasks are more time-consuming. The important thing is that I can work at all and not procrastinate. And it works! It is really not that different from the way software works. I guess from time to time you have to evaluate the best way to work for yourself.
How do you work? Do you agree with the above, or do you have a different way of scheduling your tasks? Let me know!
