Think about Timeboxing your Project
A few months ago on Web Worker Daily Mike Gunderloy posted an article titled Use Timeboxing to Slay the Perfectionist Beast. Its a method used in agile development where teams timebox their interim releases so that the software released on a certain date has the functionality that could be completed by that date – no more and no less. Not the perfect product but a good one. Similarly, he suggests, we could incorporate the timeboxing concept into our never-ending battle against perfectionism at our work.
Hands up if you are the kind of person who will sometimes catch yourself at 10pm (or 2am as used to be the case) sitting in the office rewording, re-imaging or shifting various elements around in some pursuit of perfection? If we’re honest its probably an industry-wide behaviour pattern. Some of my university assignments have been rewritten three times almost from scratch to squeeze out that extra five per cent from the marker. When that five per cent is held up to the light against the extra solid week of work and lost productivity in other areas its not a great strategy.
I’ve been meaning to give the timeboxing idea a run over the Christmas holiday. My list of intended projects can sometimes get out of hand. I think in a sense I do informally use this technique to some extent. But work needs to stop at dinner time and resume after breakfast. And, if the truth be told, if I were not working from home I wouldn’t be as likely to pop into the office and just do 5 minutes on that second draft.
My usual technique for handling tasks has been the ethereal it willl land where it lands method. Or maybe we could call it the pepper and salt method because what winds up on the tray at the time seems to be where the effort gets invested on the day.
December 10th, 2007 at 3:49 am
(Sticks hand up)…..hmm.
Treating projects as time-managed events is the key to them being completed successfully on time.
>>”My list of intended projects can sometimes get out of hand.”
Is that because they are personal projects though? I mean, do they need to be completed by certain deadlines? If something isn’t 100% right – does anyone else complain, or is it only you who will notice?
I think time-boxing might have a tough time with personal projects, but makes a lot of sense for business-related projects.
December 10th, 2007 at 7:49 am
True Matt but i tend to be bad with anything that is ambiguously timeframed… if there’s no need to complete something it drags on and on (like redesigns of the personal site). Even the reading of books tends to be a chapter here and there especially if they are not so interesting parts of boring chapters.
But that’s a valid point for a lot of people.
I guess personal project is another slippery definition. If, for example, I were to look at developing a Web 2.0 application in the real estate sector then I still need to set definitive project timelines. On that level a project is a project and timeboxing different sections is a good way to go.
The main reason – say for the application or even the site redesign – is that, as you know, its easy to get into the cycle of pushing a pixel here and there in a non-productive circle that detracts from other available time and projects.
So, personally, I find that I do need some form of discipline in that area. And I need to try a bit harder to definitively state solid timeframes. I suppose we’re talking about simplistic versions of Gantt Charts and Critical Path Method. Otherwise I find my week becomes a month…
December 11th, 2007 at 2:53 am
>>”Otherwise I find my week becomes a month…”
Speaking of which – where did 2007 go?!! hehehe
December 12th, 2007 at 8:04 am
yeh tell me about it… suddenly I’m 43 and how did that happen?!