Calculating my Overextension
Sometimes I have to prove to myself I'm doing too much. :-) Here's a good way for me to do that.
I was motivated by this question, in a few forms: what would it take (how much time) to do a SOLID job with all my commitments, per week? So, if a project is due in two months and will take 8 hours, that's about 30 min/wk... etc. If I totaled all those per week, is that possible? What HAVE I committed to?
I started with this estimate:
I wake up around 6 or 7 sleeping in at this point (but have gone through VERY late morning times...), and go to bed around 10 or 11. That's 16 hours about per day, or 112 hrs/wk (hereafter h/w).
Now I'm totaling my project categories, which are roughly my areas of responsibility. Here's that layout.
(nice that it's SO easy to do, since I have an up to date - well, at about 95% - project list!)
[project list as of Feb 12]
That gives me about this:
114 hours per week to do my commitments well. That would mean I'd have to work on SOMETHING or "be productive" from 6am to 10pm with no breathers and then find two more hours. I shouldn't be surprised that sometimes I feel behind in an area! lol. Time to cut back. And some of these things are going to INCREASE, not decrease - when the Beyond Belief magic show starts up in earnest, practice times plus show times are going to be around 20 hours per week. I'll be cutting out some aikido...
Oh, and here's how I did my calculations, which I consider important. Whatever it takes to do the project is included. So, for instance, body training includes my aikido classes and teaching, as well as my yoga cross training twice a week and my tai chi practice. It ALSO includes transportation and getting ready time - the REAL numbers.
And it turns out I'm doing too much. lol. Time to make some adjustments!
Do you have an updated full project list? Could you group them by areas of responsibility and tell if you're having to shortchange things because of your commitments? This isn't the only way to do it, of course (a lil' thing called intuition would do, too!), but sometimes having numbers helps job the mind with what you are and aren't spending wherever. That sentence made a WHOLE lotta sense, I'm sure! :-)
I was motivated by this question, in a few forms: what would it take (how much time) to do a SOLID job with all my commitments, per week? So, if a project is due in two months and will take 8 hours, that's about 30 min/wk... etc. If I totaled all those per week, is that possible? What HAVE I committed to?
I started with this estimate:
I wake up around 6 or 7 sleeping in at this point (but have gone through VERY late morning times...), and go to bed around 10 or 11. That's 16 hours about per day, or 112 hrs/wk (hereafter h/w).
Now I'm totaling my project categories, which are roughly my areas of responsibility. Here's that layout.
(nice that it's SO easy to do, since I have an up to date - well, at about 95% - project list!)
[project list as of Feb 12]
That gives me about this:
| _ | 4 |
| _Aiki-Doing | 9 |
| _Aiki-Doing Radar | 1 |
| _Basic Personal Stuff | 16 |
| _Body Training | 26 |
| _Community Engagement | 4 |
| _Community Radar | 1 |
| _Education | 14 |
| _Family | 2 |
| _Friends | 4 |
| _Home | 2 |
| _Homework | 3 |
| _Magic | 5 |
| _SAS | 16 |
| _Zen | 7 |
| 114 |
114 hours per week to do my commitments well. That would mean I'd have to work on SOMETHING or "be productive" from 6am to 10pm with no breathers and then find two more hours. I shouldn't be surprised that sometimes I feel behind in an area! lol. Time to cut back. And some of these things are going to INCREASE, not decrease - when the Beyond Belief magic show starts up in earnest, practice times plus show times are going to be around 20 hours per week. I'll be cutting out some aikido...
Oh, and here's how I did my calculations, which I consider important. Whatever it takes to do the project is included. So, for instance, body training includes my aikido classes and teaching, as well as my yoga cross training twice a week and my tai chi practice. It ALSO includes transportation and getting ready time - the REAL numbers.
And it turns out I'm doing too much. lol. Time to make some adjustments!
Do you have an updated full project list? Could you group them by areas of responsibility and tell if you're having to shortchange things because of your commitments? This isn't the only way to do it, of course (a lil' thing called intuition would do, too!), but sometimes having numbers helps job the mind with what you are and aren't spending wherever. That sentence made a WHOLE lotta sense, I'm sure! :-)
Labels: GTD
posted by Mike Dolan Fliss at
2/12/2008 10:43:00 PM
2 Comments:
Mike- What a great way to calculate your time commitments! I hope you will have time to help us with a GreenSlam,.net redesign by end of March. We are carving out some time for it on our end as well. Let's talk next week if you are able and plan our time table if you are open to it.
Hope all's well, Nancy Becker
I'm doing too much.
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