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Themed days, Timeboxing and why you should use them

jamalx31.com

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Re: Themed days, Timeboxing and why you should use them

#31

Post by ehnto »

colechristensen wrote: post #8
spiffytech wrote: post #4

I always found these task management systems unrelatable because they assume you have a bunch of tasks you can schedule and order at your discretion, that you can freely ignore most tasks for days at a time, that you can actually predict your priorities up to a week in advance, and that if your workload and your timeboxing conflict then your workload will be the one that budges. That doesn't match any situation I've…

Really? I find this rather surprising, because I would say about 80% of all of the work i’ve ever done didn’t have a hard deadline in the near future. People sure liked to try to invent emergencies, but they weren’t actually urgent.

Oh definitely, I've never met a deadline that didn't inevitably evaporate, but for management they're still very real up until that moment. It's comical, but also you come to realise that the deadline isn't for you anyway. It's for everyone around you so they can plan their tasks. When the deadline is once again pushed due to reasons outside of your control, just rest assured that everyone saw it coming and the blame probably isn't on you.

Re: Themed days, Timeboxing and why you should use them

#32

Post by can16358p »

An honest question: how do you cope with the feeling where you have much more coding to do and you haven't finished what you were working on, and now it's a non-coding day but you are constantly thinking about the code that you'd better off finish before doing anything else?

Re: Themed days, Timeboxing and why you should use them

#33

Post by pantulis »

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #29
RHSeeger wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet, every single time I've been involved in scrum, specific goals have been assigned to every cycle, and people expect those goals to be met. > Scrum uses timeboxing for all of the Scrum events and as a tool for concretely defining open-ended or ambiguous tasks.

No process can fix bad management.

And no management can fix a bad process too.

Re: Themed days, Timeboxing and why you should use them

#34

Post by brtkdotse »

> Musk is an interesting example of someone who manages his time so well that he can work 100 hours a week and still manage to take time out for his hobbies, family, and even Twitter!

Could we not do this, please? It's basically shaming people for not being able to reach the super-human level of working 15-hour days AND get a good nights sleep AND have hobbies AND be a family man. This fetishization of "efficiency" is really getting to me as of late.

Also, didn't Elon suffer from mental health problems, needing medication to even be able to sleep?

Re: Themed days, Timeboxing and why you should use them

#35

Post by dageshi »

bigmattystyles wrote: post #13

I can’t help but think this is a result of capitalism gone awry, the need to never let any time be wasted, to the point of scheduling time with ones kids. And I’m not far left of center, but yeesh. If you enjoy living life this way, more power to you. When I was younger I might have thought this sounded great. Now that I’m touching 40, it sounds like a self-made prison.

No, it's just the result of someone being nearly 100% in control of their own schedule. If you work at a traditional 9-5 job your company effectively schedules the bulk of your day... you go to work at x, leave at x, take lunch around x, the company will direct you towards the work it requires.

If you're in control of your own day 100% then either you make a schedule or it's just a soup of everything mashed into one which I guarantee you will drive you slowly mad. I totally understand why people schedule their days like this, it removes the anxiety as your own boss of saying "what should I be doing right now".

Re: Themed days, Timeboxing and why you should use them

#36

Post by s5300 »

brtkdotse wrote: post #34

> Musk is an interesting example of someone who manages his time so well that he can work 100 hours a week and still manage to take time out for his hobbies, family, and even Twitter! Could we not do this, please? It's basically shaming people for not being able to reach the super-human level of working 15-hour days AND get a good nights sleep AND have hobbies AND be a family man. This fetishization of "efficiency" i…

Please don't act like living an Elon style life is the only way to get mental health problems needing medication to even be able to sleep.

You speak of shaming people only to go and narc on sleep issues. Great person you are.

Re: Themed days, Timeboxing and why you should use them

#38

Post by brtkdotse »

s5300 wrote: post #36
brtkdotse wrote: post #34

> Musk is an interesting example of someone who manages his time so well that he can work 100 hours a week and still manage to take time out for his hobbies, family, and even Twitter! Could we not do this, please? It's basically shaming people for not being able to reach the super-human level of working 15-hour days AND get a good nights sleep AND have hobbies AND be a family man. This fetishization of "efficiency" i…

Please don't act like living an Elon style life is the only way to get mental health problems needing medication to even be able to sleep. You speak of shaming people only to go and narc on sleep issues. Great person you are.

Elon explicitly said he felt like shit working 100 hour work weeks and needing sleeping pills, so not really sure what your point is.

Re: Themed days, Timeboxing and why you should use them

#39

Post by rightbyte »

verletx64 wrote: post #37
pantulis wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And no management can fix a bad process too.

This doesn't particularly make sense.

It makes sense if you don't include "replace the current process" in the set of "fix current process".

Re: Themed days, Timeboxing and why you should use them

#40

Post by jimnotgym »

I don't believe for a second that Elon Musk works 100 hours a week plus hobbies and free time in any conventional sense of the word work.

I don't believe that every random set of 40 hours in his 100 would be something that he would be happy to pay someone else to do.

Successful people lie to themselves like this all the time.

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