Scheduling
How do you schedule your tasks? I believe, there are two schools of thought on scheduling: “simultaneously” or “sequentially”. My whole life, I was the type that worked simultaneously on different projects at a time. Lately, maybe because I am getting old, I tend to switch to work sequentially, otherwise – I have the feeling – I won’t get things done at all.
Working simultaneously
I usually get bored easily, even if it is something as exciting as archaeology. I was never the type that was able to only work on one thing. It soon bored me or I was stuck and then I had the possiblity to move to something else until I could continue with my first task. Sometimes I worked on three or four things at once. I wrote about this in the past and called it the “Postpone the Problem“-method. It worked quiet well for me for some time, but lately, it doesn’t anymore.
Currently, I have the problem that more and more work keeps piling up. At the moment, I am writing (or am involved in writing) four papers at once. In addition I am writing a grant proposal (which is important right now) and am planning my next conference visits of course. So my method of switching between tasks somehow ends up in doing very little for everything and not finishing in time.
Working sequentially
Then there are these people that have a task, finish it and then tackle the next one. I couldn’t do that for the longest time, but lately can see the benefit. What I lacked is the attention span for this, but lately I forced myself and it actually worked. It just needs a bit more discipline and being ok with being stuck from time to time. But slowly I get the hang of it.
It also helps in prioritizing tasks, because when I have to decide on one task for now, I really have to think what is the most pressing one. I am currently doing that with my grant proposal, as it has to be submitted this year in order for me to work on the project next year. So the urgency is quiet clear.
Working at all!
So 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 were easy, while now tasks are more time intensive. The important part here is, that I can work at all and do not procrastinate. And it works! It is actually not so much different from how software works. I guess from time to time one has to evaluate the best working practice for oneself.
How do you work? Do you agree with the evaluation above or do you even have another way of scheduling your tasks? Let me know!
