As some of you have noticed, the last few weeks have been uncharacteristically quiet. A couple of things conspired to keep me away from this blog and lots of other things that I like doing. I’ve had that happen from time to time, but this time I paid attention and looked at the distractors. The goal, of course, is to prevent those little interruptions from happening in the future.
Major Distractions
- Work
- New video games
- Too many projects
- New hosting provider
- Spring Blah
Looking closely at them, there is one major theme lurking behind all of them - focus. It’s something I should have known even before compiling the list, but sometimes writing things down helps to clear the mind.
So now that I know what the problem is, how to address it? There are a couple of things that come to mind.
- Setting a goal
It’s hard to focus if you don’t know what you’re focussing on. So, obviously, goals are a must. - Triage
As “too many projects” clearly evidences, per-project goals don’t help that much either. To achieve focus, I need to reduce the number of projects I am juggling simultaneously. - Purpose
I’m strange that way, but I need to know why I do things. Just doing work because “that’s what you do” doesn’t cut it for me. - Environment
Too many distractions, and the most well-planned approaches will break. To keep my focus, I find that I need to cut down on the number of distractions. Having “play time” is still important, though. The easiest target for distraction reduction - RSS feeds and e-mail newsletters. Looks like it’s time for a pruning again….
That leads to 4 projects on my radar:
- Work
Deliver a polished 1.0 so we can move on to long-term goals - iCalFix
A road map for iCalFix so I can decide where to take this application. 0.4 is still going to happen, but there are bigger items on the list. - Blog
A streamlined blog posting process. I need to reduce the time wasted on the side effects of blogging - keeping Tags up to date, Spam reduction, etc. Yes, that might mean a few more weeks with reduced posting volume. - Piano
Get recital-ready - I need to satisfy my urge for public performances.