Workflow rennovation 2024

  • last year’s thing
  • why
  • this year’s thing
    • more cards
    • more cards coming off the board
    • backlogs that are backlogs, not crammed inboxes
  • maybe something on being behind

2023’s thing

I did a major review / overhaul of how I was working on projects across the board in winter / spring (mud season?) last year, both out of necessity and a conscious decision to try to find some footing after a year full of big shifts and changes. I was just calling it Get Set Up. That period lasted longer than I thought it would because we had to move art studios after ours got broken into multiple times in the spring, shortly after I thought I had finished my Getting Set Up. Besides all that, and partially because of it, I was in a strange and uncomfortable state with most of my projects. Like many people, my career momentum got disrupted at the start of the pandemic, but I managed to finish a few major projects in 2021/2022. But then everything got busy and chaotic and that was also most of the juice I had in me at the time, it seemed. So 2023’s goal was to get all the plates spinning again, settle in to new habits and spaces and make sense of / clear out the remaining projects I had carried over from 2022/2023.

My most visible way of doing that was to put up a corkboard – three small corkboards actually – to track high-er level goals through out the year across various types of work. I wrote them on blue index cards and gave myself gold stars for working on them when I remembered to.

This is definitely more formal than I usual work, especially since it covered my art and music practices, but I felt like I needed it.

Overall, I have to admit that it was pretty effective, in a way that didn’t feel like too much extra work, even though it does feel a little… intense? dorky? not sure. Even so, I’m on board to keep it going, but I want to improve it for this year.

New flow for 2024

Vibes to improve

  • I got enough plates spinning that my head started to spin a little too.
  • Starting energy is different than continuing energy, and I need to make the shift.
  • Also, I’m working in multiple tracks that are the kind of thing that any one of them are deep enough for people to dedicate all of their time and energy to. Trying to do hard things in each can create some accumulating brain strain. There are healthier ways of recognizing and accepting this that I’d like to keep in front of me.
  • I’m not working at the same level across the board, so I’m also trying to balance my time and attention between what really deserves it and what just seems fun and cool at the moment.
  • I’m feeling too old to just be fuckin around on stuff. I spent most of my 30s cooking some big projects, and I’d like them to get out there.

New flow:

put do-able goals cards on right hand corkboard at start of week

assign yourself time to work on them during the week

inbox only for short term goals

in-flight needs a rethink, specific duration maybe

everything else is a project backlog

you should be doing more concrete context switching, driven by goals or immediate tasks. ie looking at a card or a short term task, and then opening the project to see specifics, closing it when you move on to something else.
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