[teampractices] [Discussion] Term for always prepping for the next thing

[Kevin Smith]

I'm not ad adherent of any zero inbox plans, although I try to keep my
inbox under one page.

My main advice would be: Experiment, and find out what works best for you.
Experiment, inspect, adapt, and iterate. Don't be afraid to try something
that might end up being worse rather than better.

As an experiment, I would try:

   1. When those emails come in, clear them out of your inbox by adding
   them to a "little bits of work" queue. As long as the queue only contains
   small tasks, and is lightweight to manage (like an inbox folder), it
   shouldn't be a burden.
   2. Block off specific appointments with yourself to do "little bits of
   work". This could be half an hour per week, or 2 hours per day, or
   whatever. Start with your best guess.

This would allow you to clear your inbox without context switching, which
sounds like a win. Plus it would avoid the risk of getting caught in a
longer-than-expected editing session when you thought you were clearing
your inbox.

Also, you would be accurately tracking how much time "little work" is
taking, at a high level, for free. If your queue is growing, schedule more
or longer sessions. Or, if your calendar is already full, blissfully drop
the least interesting items from the queue. Or if you're a bit OCD or
masochistic, have a second, separate ("low priority") queue that you will
get to "someday".

This method wouldn't require any estimation (beyond "this looks small"). It
would merely expose the reality of how much time this work takes, in
aggregate.



Kevin Smith
Agile Coach, Wikimedia Foundation


On Wed, Sep 30, 2015 at 3:14 PM, S Page <spage at wikimedia.org> wrote:

> On Wed, Sep 9, 2015 at 10:32 AM, Kevin Smith <ksmith at wikimedia.org> wrote:
>
>>  I'm imagining someone whose "todo" queue is growing linearly while their
>> "done" pile eternally remains empty. It seems odd that new higher-priority
>> work would be coming in so fast that not only can the old work not get done
>> first, but the new work can't either.
>>
>
> The problem for me comes from ruthless prioritization vs. dealing with new
> small inbox issues in the moment. I'm sure I read some advice to do the
> latter instead of the overhead of managing an enormous growing pile of
> postponed work. Especially with documentation, tagging yet another mail
> thread "ought to document this nugget some day" vs. spending
> just-a-little-bit more time getting it done here and now. The problems are
> a) If there are too many small things you can get done in the moment, then
> those moments take over your day.
> b) Hoftstadter's Law [1].
>
> I guess the answer is to budget your time better. Thanks for any advice,
> though I don't expect any because answering this is not in your quarterly
> goals or current sprint :-).
>
> [1] "It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into
> account Hofstadter's Law." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hofstadter's_law
>
> --
> =S Page  WMF Tech writer
>
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