Saturday, September 26, 2009
Long-term Projects: Moving Past the Distractions
WebWorkerDaily: "When I sit down at my computer each morning, I always have plenty of emails asking me to work on short-term projects: a connection that has to be made today, a round of revisions that needs to be made immediately, a phone call that really ought to have happened last night, etc. Because of how immediate all of these requests are, it’s easy to get lost in them and let my long-term projects fall by the wayside."
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11 comments:
I agree with the sentiment that e-mail has flooded us with requests to work on the small stuff. The same thing happens to me- i can spend 30 minutes at the end of the day reading e-mails and following up on the ones i have to. It makes the homework or the other tasks i need to go fall to the wayside. I like the idea of not opening e-mail for a couple of hours to let the bigger projects get done, but that takes an enormous amount of self control. Does anyone have other suggestions to help in this area?
I have mixed feelings about email for small project additions. I'm really much more fond of instantaneous messaging, be it by text, IM or twitter. I hate checking my email after I've gone to sleep and finding something I should have done last night - although most of the time the definition of "last night" is around 2am. If it's THAT important, then I'd rather be woken up (and now that I've said that I'm going to regret it in the near future, I'm sure). But at least with other mediums, you get a response back fairly quickly. With email, there's the assumption that even if there's no reply, the recipient has read it. With instantaneous mediums, no response means the other person did not get it and thus the task will not be completed in an initial time frame. I know my personal use of Twitter, for example, is not useful professionally, but effective communication in a project is essential. It's incredibly important for a group to decide on a method of communication and the acceptable time frames for replies.
I know all of the Sophomore DPs have a couple of large projects coming up; the mask project and the muppet are among them. Personally, I've been swamped with the smaller, more immediate tasks such as salt peanuts and the week-to-week homework assigned in other classes. Long term time management is always the most difficult.
I have to agree with the article that email has made it easier to get more and more short term projects thrown on your back. Just because it was sent by email doesn't mean you need to say "Yes" to everything. I personally get asked to do projects via a face to face conversation or phone call...I personally like this interaction because it gives you the chance to discuss the project before you commit to it. It would be interesting to see what other people say about this.
I definitely know how it feels to get lost in a project when other more time sensitive issues come up. Like Brian said, it takes a great amount of self control to not let that happen... although I feel like many times it is not email that is piling up. Instead it is the more instantaneous forms of communication that add to my to-do list, because everyone does want that immediate response.
While the short term projects tend to take up most of your time day to day, in dealing with a situation where you have multiple long term projects alongside daily and weekly short term projects, it is important to break down the long term projects into smaller chunks. This way, they can be treated as shorter term projects and get the same sense of immediacy of a project with a closer due date.
Also, in a world where we are continually connected via e-mail, SMS, MMS, tweets, and facebook updates all on our phone, trying to restrict connectivity in order to focus on projects with further away deadlines gets harder and harder. Perhaps having social networking and your only source of communication as the same device is not the best situation.
I'm horrible at trying to finish larger projects or work when I get emails and stuff like that. They can be very distracting. However, there are times when I've been working really hard for a couple hours on a project, and I think it's good to take a break and go focus on the little problems for a little while. I think people need that distraction to take their mind off their work momentarily. Not too long of a break, but just a chance to relax, because for me, I am very focused when working on a large project, and need that break so that I can work longer and better.
I have to agree with Rachel. I like to go and work on projects for a while, but then I’ll check e-mail or work on smaller projects that need to be done sooner, and usually aren’t nearly as complicated. It’s a good way to break up the work, while still getting things done at the same time. The only thing to worry about is that you don’t get too distracted by the other work, and get back to what you’re originally doing because all those little tasks that sometimes end up in your e-mail can add up pretty quickly, and then you’ve spent a few hours just focusing on that, and not doing your original project. E-mail is good and bad in that sense as the article notes. it can let you know about things instantaneously, but some of the things you find out about were things you didn’t think you’d necessarily have to worry about, and you have to spend longer working on all the small things you have to do.
I think that it's really important to be able to say no, at least for me. I know that when people ask me to do something, I'm so quick to say yes just because I don't want to let them down. I also agree that it's important to make sure that you get to things that you need to do before checking your email because that way you won't forget about them.
Personally, i have never gotten smaller projects through email. If anything comes up its always face to face or by text messaging. And even then i never feel like i have to say yes. I do what i can, but if i cant i tell them and point them to someone who can. I prefer those to emails because i cant always check my email, but thats not an issue for a face to face or text messaging.
I think for managers saying no can be one of the hardest things for us to do. We constantly try to be supportive and there for our directors and producers and cast, that it can be tough to turn down something being asked of us. With that in mind, there have been times when there have been some things asked of us that are very outside our realm of duties, and therefor we should not feel guilty for not doing them. As someone who is reponsible and reliable many people may ask us to do things, but we need to keep in mind that it is not our job to manage other peoples lives for them outside of the theatre.
I completely understand what this article is trying to say. It makes a valid point. However, I do not like the solution given to solve the problem. I would shuffle the order just a bit. Instead of holding off on opening e-mail until you have worked on a small project, I would propose opening your e-mail and dealing with intimidate issues for an hour. Then spend an hour on your long term project. Once you have accomplished your short term goals on the long term project, then you can go back to the other needs of the day including those posed in your e-mail. This will allow you to deal with any truly intimidate "fires" if there is something of an extremely time sensitive nature. If you waited to check your e-mail you may end up kicking yourself for missing a deadline or not doing something you had promied to do.
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