The Game Plan
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I have tomorrow off work, and I want to use this opportunity to refocus my efforts into actionable, measurable targets, and to establish a more effective and sustainable workload moving forward. I will push this blog out before bed, and tweet it to make a publicly visible commitment. Please tweet me @MaxLepper and / or comment on this post to hold me to it!
It has been mentioned - probably more than it should be - over the past month, but I’ve been hit with this sense of overwhelm and inability to charge forward with the same intensity as previous months. I believe this is due to multiple factors:
- I’ve been at it for a while. The wear of trying to maintain 20-30 hours a week of development learning on top of an already mentally demanding full-time job in a different skill set takes a fair bit out of me.
- I have lately been using “need” statements in regards to specific tasks and learning skills that I know will have a high value yield if I work to incorporate them. This, and motivation in general, has been a big subject for the past few blogs.
- I have multiple trustworthy sources of direction now, as opposed to being predominantly self-directed. Understandably, not all vectors are pointed in the same direction, and I have been experiencing some analysis paralysis.
- I have slowly been accumulating physical exhaustion of either being unable to sleep or staying up too late pushing myself to cram a bit more progress into each day (with mixed success). My Tasks page has been calling me out incessantly and I am very aware of it.
The holiday weekend has been a great opportunity to reset my sleep schedule and properly recharge - hopefully giving me the energy to make tomorrow a success!
MORNING
- Get up at the same time as a typical workday.
- Attend Irregular Cafe.
- If there is opportunity to discuss, follow up on book club books and express interest in participating. Both books sound excellent!
- Complete the Yearly Prioritization Workbook from Susan Shu Chang.
- Summarize my findings and feelings from workbook.
- Attempt to complete by lunch / early afternoon.
AFTERNOON
- Revisit the priority list from 11/22 and refine.
- Try to identify overlap with the workbook.
- Identify and weigh key objectives.
- Consider formalized rank-order prioritization for in the future, too much overhead for today.
- Additionally prioritize key objectives with respect to mentor tasks.
- Create either one or A/B weekly schedules for themed work sessions, with formal time slots.
- The goal will be to try and take on objectives that fit with that day’s theme, when it makes sense. Obviously, working on a project or intensive learning subject may take priority, but I want to keep all the plates spinning as much as possible.
- Try to factor in “downtime,” similar to an exercise routine, where maybe I follow up a few days of study with networking or generalized research.
- I would like to formalize a time slot for book reading (15 minutes every day?). I currently squeeze reading into short walks, and it is not enough.
EVENING
- Develop a current “all fronts” action-item list of absolutely everything that I actively want to work on.
- Sort this list into categories.
- If applicable, assign time estimates to tasks.
- Break down tasks bigger than one day into smaller related tasks.
- Aim to reduce my default daily commitments. I can always selectively opt into additional tasks.
- Consider building this task list in Airtable and extracting tasks from the daily blogs. Include only completed tasks to reduce blog clutter.
- Collect and review all artifacts from the day.
- Post a draft blog (NOT live, leave it rough), recording my time and any major bullet points that I would like to include.
- Tweet out success of objectives, and any valuable immediate impressions.
- Stop and REST for the remainder of the evening.
It’s off to bed for me as soon as I send this tweet. Fingers crossed that this ends up being a productive and beneficial exercise!
Tasklist
- Migrate tasks which are not time-sensitive to blog todo lists (on Tasks page)
- Revisit the priority list from 11/22 and develop a schedule
- Change the
create-react-component-folder
template for Storybook stories in my Portfolio
Skills used:
Time spent:
- 55 minutes
References:
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