life in the queues [07/25/2008 16:08:18]

The time slicing experiment is going well.

Here's my latest version of the chart:

I think part of the reason that I couldn't get Getting Things Done working before was that I was trying to do too much.

If I've learned anything from Eli Goldratt, it's that if you have a queue problem, the answer is probably to cut the batch size. (The "agile" equivalent is to use short iterations.)

Time slicing is the small batch size / short iteration concept applied to time management.

Now that I'm on a schedule, GTD has magically started working. My 15 minutes of planning per loop has morphed into 15 minutes of maintaining and prioritizing my next actions list. The hour of "goal" time has morphed into just working off the list.

So, I think what's going to happen is change "goals" to "actions". Then if I drop the "errands" block (because errands are just actions) and trim an hour off my sleep time (since I keep waking up early), that gives me an extra loop and an extra 45 minutes of slack.

At least in theory. It's going to be a while before I get up to that speed. All this blogging today is coming out of the "fun" and "slack" times, as are meals and my walk this morning.

What I'm expecting is that I'll as the queues drain and I get better at this, I'll start to have more slack.

The reason I'll get more slack is that I won't usually need 15 minutes of planning or 15 minutes of support, and I'll be getting enough client hours in that I can drop them from the loop later in the day.

I'm going to try to keep a more detailed time log so I can graph my actual results vs the plan.