Friday, February 17, 2006

One of the goals of self-improvement is being able to do more things, or do all the things you’re currently doing in less time. People often confuse those goals and, with the time saved, do more things.

Which is not to say that one can’t, for example, trim down one’s life to so few projects that one can add another project or two and stay sane. There’s a sweet spot, and unfortunately that sweet spot is different for different people (it also changes over time).

This is something I’m trying to figure out. What is my “sweet spot?” How many projects can I comfortably keep up with, while also maintaining a social life and free time?

Right now, I have seven projects. I’m trying to figure out how to cut that down to six. I may not be able to do that, but I also may be able to do enough on my existing projects that they take very little time, allowing me to add another project.

Still, seven feels too big.

Comments:

Brennen I think my sweet spot is, perhaps unfortunately, in the neighborhood of 0 at any given time. There is just not much space on the stack, so to speak.
Brennen Actually, I like the stack model. If I were into that sort of thing, I’d design a geeky personal productivity system based on pushing & popping things into/from a literal physical stack, and write a blog post in the hopes of sparking some kind of hipster-PDAish fad.
Stephen Sounds nifty, but more nifty if there could be parallel, linked stacks. I.e. “Learning to Program” could be on “personal” and “professional” stacks, and at different levels on each. Ok. How about a webs of projects. A core goal in the center and supporting goals surrounding?
Brennen I think you might be getting into “Getting Things Done” territory there, but I haven’t actually paid much attention to the whole GTD phenomenon.
Stephen I’ve never heard of GTD. But then, I’ve never really been all that goal oriented :-)
Brennen You might actually get a kick out of browsing around over on 43 folders (Google should provide a link). I’m not exactly an organization geek, but the tools-oriented vibe appeals to me.

One response to “Friday, February 17, 2006”

  1. Brent P. Newhall's Blog » On/Off

    […] may recall, I recently pared down my list of projects (see my February 17th entry) from about fifteen to seven. That list shifted around a bit as some of those projects shifted […]

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