ken.trock (11/28/2011)
The single most common cause of both work overload and project failure is doing work twice. The most common cause of that is picking up some piece of work (opening an e-mail, looking at a piece of code, whatever), and not handling it right then and there, but instead deciding to handle it later. Right there, you just made yourself do at least twice the work of analyzing whatever it is you just had to analyze a first time. The second most common cause of double-work is not doing something right the first time, usually in a false sense of "just get it done".
That is a great point. Try to finish something now that you've already started. Don't go 3/4 down a task and say "I'll finish it up next time", even if it's Friday afternoon. Or maybe especially because it's Friday afternoon 😀
Ken
Actually, starting something Friday and finishing it Monday is a good way to end up with your mind locking on the incomplete action all weekend, thus ruining any chances to pay real attention to the weekend at all. Essentially, you get to work the weekend for free, off the clock, even when you're asleep, because your mind will still have pieces of that work stuck in it. So, finish what you start, if you can, and finish as close to when you start as you can.
- Gus "GSquared", RSVP, OODA, MAP, NMVP, FAQ, SAT, SQL, DNA, RNA, UOI, IOU, AM, PM, AD, BC, BCE, USA, UN, CF, ROFL, LOL, ETC
Property of The Thread
"Nobody knows the age of the human race, but everyone agrees it's old enough to know better." - Anon