Priorities
What do you use to keep track of your day to day priorities?
I've gone through everything from legal pads, sticky pads, dozens of re-written word docs, excel spreadsheets, Outlook tasks, tried MS Project once, used Google Homepage Tasks widget module for a day and just tonight created a new BaseCamp project to manage my To Do list.
Ideas come quickly, but then tend to get backlogged as it takes a while to execute on the great theories. Then, it feels like you're rushing to catch up and simply keep up with the latest and great trends that are launched everyday. Then Google launches Music Trends which hooks into your iTunes through Google Talk and you wonder what they're really up to.
Amazing how things move so fast sometimes...
Maybe the idea behind keeping priorities lists is to try to stay on top of the ideas and attempt in some uncontrollable way to SLOW DOWN the moments so you can catch your breath, get some perspective and try to plow through the ideas that you had months ago.
Of course, with things changing so quickly, you want a system that can be adaptable and flexible enough so you can actually make some headway. Are you really ever going to get the 40th item on your list? Or are you constantly re-prioritizing and shuffling objectives as new ideas come in and you say to yourself "That's important this week."
Your NetFlix queue allows you to have 100 movies in it, but you can only have three at your house at a time. You're never going to go through them one by one, but it's a reminder wish list, which you can reference and move various ones to the top and reshuffle constantly.
When making a priority list, put the 2-3 things on the top that you really want to get done, and the rest underneath in no particular order. Then start at the top, do the first few and then reshuffle. If you can actually get through three without adding or reshuffling, then it's impressive.
Amazing that after all this time I still haven't found my perfect system to keep things in order, yet I still manage to push ideas out the door that I've been working on for years...
As Bob Dylan said that an artist never wants to feel as though they're arriving at any place, I suppose an engineer never wants to clear their list completely. There are always new ideas, always new horizons to explore and always an opportunity rewrite something that was done years ago before you went through the process of learning all the things you needed to know to make it do what you wanted it to do.
Just like I'm trying to find the perfect sentence upon which to end this post, I can't really conclude it and will leave you with the lyrics to ALO's BBQ song which goes:
I've gone through everything from legal pads, sticky pads, dozens of re-written word docs, excel spreadsheets, Outlook tasks, tried MS Project once, used Google Homepage Tasks widget module for a day and just tonight created a new BaseCamp project to manage my To Do list.
Ideas come quickly, but then tend to get backlogged as it takes a while to execute on the great theories. Then, it feels like you're rushing to catch up and simply keep up with the latest and great trends that are launched everyday. Then Google launches Music Trends which hooks into your iTunes through Google Talk and you wonder what they're really up to.
Amazing how things move so fast sometimes...
Maybe the idea behind keeping priorities lists is to try to stay on top of the ideas and attempt in some uncontrollable way to SLOW DOWN the moments so you can catch your breath, get some perspective and try to plow through the ideas that you had months ago.
Of course, with things changing so quickly, you want a system that can be adaptable and flexible enough so you can actually make some headway. Are you really ever going to get the 40th item on your list? Or are you constantly re-prioritizing and shuffling objectives as new ideas come in and you say to yourself "That's important this week."
Your NetFlix queue allows you to have 100 movies in it, but you can only have three at your house at a time. You're never going to go through them one by one, but it's a reminder wish list, which you can reference and move various ones to the top and reshuffle constantly.
When making a priority list, put the 2-3 things on the top that you really want to get done, and the rest underneath in no particular order. Then start at the top, do the first few and then reshuffle. If you can actually get through three without adding or reshuffling, then it's impressive.
Amazing that after all this time I still haven't found my perfect system to keep things in order, yet I still manage to push ideas out the door that I've been working on for years...
As Bob Dylan said that an artist never wants to feel as though they're arriving at any place, I suppose an engineer never wants to clear their list completely. There are always new ideas, always new horizons to explore and always an opportunity rewrite something that was done years ago before you went through the process of learning all the things you needed to know to make it do what you wanted it to do.
Just like I'm trying to find the perfect sentence upon which to end this post, I can't really conclude it and will leave you with the lyrics to ALO's BBQ song which goes:
- The road is long and windy,
Like a good mystery unfolding
It twists and turns
In colorful subplots and sunburns
And fake out endings
And sometimes my patience in the whole process starts bending
As I attempt to unravel the web
By rehearsing and reversing and perversing and traversing
Along the doubt laden extension chord threads
Of my life
And in this life we're free to dream what ever we want to
But that doesn’t' mean that your dreams are gonna come true
Instead as a way of getting us to move
Life dangles your dreams in front of you
And unable to resist the temptation
We continue
And it's clear to me that this life is gonna be
All about the dangling possibilities that keep turning in and turning out
Yes it's clear to me that this life is gonna be all
About the dangling possibilities that keep turning in…
The road is long and windy
Full of twists and turns
But before you can rise from the ashes
You've got to burn baby burn
Welcome to your Barbecue
Where we roast all the dreams that never came true
Welcome to your Barbecue
Pig out and dream a new
Welcome to you're, welcome to you're, welcome to you're barbecue…
posted by Andy at
11:07 PM
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