I haven’t posted (again) in rather some time. Frankly this has mostly been down to a really massive (and increasing) workload over the past few months, as well as external life pressures. 2011 is likely to get even busier and let’s face it, life never really gets simpler does it?
Above: Yawn! Photo courtesy of robef
Insomnia
Many of you may know that I suffer from ongoing problems of insomnia, sometimes rather severe – preventing me from sleeping at all some nights. It can be rather challenging to adapt my lifestyle to a very limited sleeping pattern, and at times it has affected my work. It’s a really disappointing fact of life as I really pride myself on robust ability to deliver during office hours as a bare minimum. Others of you will know that I have been a workaholic for most of my working life, having seen the sun both rise and fall a stack of times in the last office I worked at in Brighton. You will normally find me glued to my laptop during evenings and weekends too, if not working directly on a day-job related task, then improving my skills and knowledge in a related sector. I’ve actually grown to make use of these hours of insomnia at night when distractions are at an absolute minimum, to more effectively work on small projects and take some ideas for progressing work based projects as far as I possibly can.
However, 2011 presents a challenge of getting more value out of my time, with potentially less resource. The requirement to deliver is increasing, and I need to get more organised, more structured and manage expectations more carefully.
Above: If you like post-it notes then you may also like Agile. Photo courtesy of iteventboston
One eye on the KPI, and keeping things Agile
Strict planning is often highlighted as key to this process, but I’m finding it actually can be adverse to improving efficiency. In contrast, keeping one eye on KPIs permanently seems more sensible. In an office that practices Agile XP quite heavily in its development team, my ambition is to learn what can be taken from Agile as a working methodology and apply it both to my own design work, and to marketing as a whole. Iterative improvement seems to make logical sense, and so does smallest-product-to-market in many cases. There are some myths in this that perhaps need to be debunked thought – For example, I believe that ‘done is better than perfect’ is correct when ‘done’ means, completed to 90-95% of the intended objective, perfectionism is not always a strength, but where ‘done’ is treated much more liberally with things going wrong all over the place, then I believe that ‘done’ is not truly being fulfilled, and this can be deeply damaging to brand perception.
So let’s assume planning is a good thing by default – the question is rather how to make it more fluid in order to compensate for continuing, sometimes substantial, changes in a fast moving, competitive environment. My feeling in this is that setting overall objectives is great, but planning structured day by day / week by week / month by month plans is near-on valueless, because project time estimates are often poor (un-estimateable problems often occur), and the iterative learning that is done within the process of completing each campaign lends itself to continued improvement, and therefore throws each plan out of the window as soon as the first few tasks are complete.
Above: Basecamp. It has a really simple UI. That’s a good thing. If you’re used to MS Project, then Basecamp is going to save your sanity (unless you manage workflows of a factory or something horrible)
Flexible planning with Basecamp
My solution is currently to use a simple project management tool, Basecamp, to set critical project milestones and break down projects into individual task to-do lists that are assigned to users. It’s a super simple tool, and that makes it ideal for throwing together loose plans, rather than rigid structures. I’ve been using Basecamp during most of November and December just between me and another colleague, and personally it’s been invaluable in tracking and sharing our workload. I’m inviting others in our team to join in if they feel it might be useful for them, so I’ll report back to elaborate a little on the results.
Focused, uninterrupted working with The Pomodoro Technique
I’m also using The Pomodoro Technique to concentrate short 25-minute blocks of focus onto single tasks, reduce distraction and block smaller tasks into clear segments of time. It’s also pretty useful for limiting the length of sometimes laborious meetings. It was recommended to me by my fanatically forward thinking colleague, Rob Cooper and I’m finding it really enlightening in showing me quite how much of my time is wasted each day. It’s really helped me focus, and that’s so valuable in a working environment where distraction is so so so easy.
I’m using a rather nice Adobe Air application called Focus Booster to manage my Pomodoro timing. It’s a really simple timer that counts down 25 minute blocks (you can change the times) and then 5 minute breaks, and counts up the number of each that you’ve completed. I like it. It does what it says on the tin, but there are plenty of others around if you prefer something with a tomato theme perhaps, or a native OSX app.
Rework
Lastly, the most productivity and work efficiency tools I’ve learned have come from reading Rework, by Jason Fried (37 Signals) – there are just so many valuable tips in there that I won’t repeat them here. Just have a read yourself, its worth every penny.
2011
Anyway, it’s somewhat of a new year’s resolution to get a little bit more organised. Well, a LOT more organised and better at time management especially with new pressures coming onboard. I need to nail this focus, and get better at pushing back / saying no at times when new project pressures come onboard.
My point about keeping one eye on KPI’s is important, because I believe that focus on results, especially in marketing, within the current age of social media, etc is essential – we need to be fast to react, fast to realise what’s not working (rather than have a report of analysis a month later), and fast to realise what is working so we can build upon it and do more.
Here’s to a successful 2011 for you all. I’d love to hear some of the techniques that you’re all using, and some of the software too! So please comment, it’d be much appreciated!
