Getting there...

, Will Kahn-Greene | share this (mastodon)
Note: This is an old post in a blog with a lot of posts over a long span of time. The world has changed, technologies have changed, and I've changed. It's likely this is out of date, the code doesn't work, the ideas haven't aged well, or the ideas were terrible to begin with. Let me know if you think this is something that needs updating.

"Getting there..." That's my new motto. It's not "I finished it yesterday", "I'll finish it up tonight" or even "I'm planning to do it this weekend". Now it's "Getting there...". The last year has come with some changes which have totally foobar'd my ability to predict when I'll get to spend time on tasks and how long it'll take me to complete them. It seems a bit demoralizing. I feel like I've got a huge backlog of promises and the rate at which I finish tasks is much much less than the rate at which I acquire new tasks.

Additionally, I think most of the tasks are much larger and more complex now.

So my new approach is to not worry about completing things but rather spend more time focusing on the incremental portions, document stuff, and communicate with the rest of the folks involved. I'm thinking in terms of questions like this:

  • Can I spend some time on this to improve it?

  • Can I throw time at that to make one person happy?

  • Can I do some work on some other thing so that someone else can see what I'm doing and take it from there?

  • Can I shed some light on the issue so that someone else can take it from there?

The important message being that we're moving in a positive direction. We're in a game of inches and we're getting them one by one because there are so many things in the backlog that I can't seem to finish entire tasks in one sitting, so to speak. (Note to self--need to buy that movie.) And there's a lot of "us" in "we"--it's not just me. It's important to focus on documentation and communication so other people are equipped to work on things that I can't get to any time soon.

Want to comment? Send an email to willkg at bluesock dot org. Include the url for the blog entry in your comment so I have some context as to what you're talking about.