Max Mednik
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Readings and musings

Daily and weekly time slices

12/14/2011

1 Comment

 
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I wanted to write a short post on the topic of time management, mainly asking a question as opposed to providing an answer. I'm curious to learn how readers manage their busy schedules and what time slicing method works for them.

By "time slicing," I'm referring to two opposing methods that I've considered for time management:
  1. Intra-day/small slices: Each day is filled with many types of activities that you need to be involved in. This means everyday you exercise, meet with customers, network with colleagues, do informational interviews, recruit, write code, do online marketing, eat, have fun, and sleep. That's a ton to fit in to one day, and each slice is necessarily small (or non-existent on certain days).
  2. Intra-week/large slices: Separate days are devoted to separate activities. Huge swaths of time are devoted for intense focus on 1-2 important activities. For example, all coffee meetings, interviews, phone calls, etc. are on Fridays. All marketing work is on Wednesdays. Workouts are 2-3 days a week. And the rest of the days are all for intense work on ____ (fill in the blank for your most important function, like coding, recruiting, designing, etc.).

There are clearly pros and cons to each method. Large slices allow more intense focus and less switching costs. Small slices allow more "balance" in each day and quicker responses to opportunities that come up (like for phone calls, meetings, etc.). And sometimes you don't have a choice: if you really need to meet with someone who can only meet on a day that's not your "meeting day," it will disrupt your rhythm.

This decision also gets into the need to say no to various requests for help or meeting (or at least delays if not no's), which can often be painful to do.

What do you do? What methods have you found useful in managing your time along this axis?
1 Comment
Suman Datta link
12/18/2011 04:41:30 pm

This is an important topic to me -

The way I approach it currently is to be reactive - that is method 1.

From time to time, I take days or weeks,and occasionally even months - completely disengaging from my reactive state and switch to another state where I am only focused on [a] either reflecting on what I am doing, why I am doing it etc OR [b]a particular project that needs my complete attention OR [c] take a break and engage in fun activities OR [d] travel. During this time, I do respond to important matters but keep it to a minimum or putting it off.

I am not convinced that this is the best way but have not figured out something better. Would love to hear what else you have found out from your discussions.

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