Tag: productivity

April 16, 2024 – Have You Considered a Portable Monitor?

April 16, 2024 /

I have. All the way back to 2010, I had a co-worker that had one. They have been around a long time and the original ones were more like an iPad size. I was amazed at how inexpensive they have become as well when I was looking. They used to cost more than a real monitor. Only recently have I put it more in the want category.

I resisted a second monitor for a long time. Most of my co-workers had second monitors long before me. My logic was that I spent a lot of time on the road 25-50% travel and I didn’t want it to become a necessity. I finally got one in 2013. I think it was because the company was making so much money that the owners decided to re-invest some of it.

I worked for a small company and everything other than what they gave us, we had to justify or buy it ourselves. I have come nearly 180 degrees since that time. I used to feel like I would spend nothing from my own money because it wasn’t necessary. But, today I prefer to own my own equipment and comfort and productivity are worth the money. Not to mention that if I own the stuff, I can use it how I choose, like my work with AltF4.

One day, I showed up at work and voila, I had a new monitor. The owner said ‘Got to protect those eyes from strain’. I said thanks. I also got a new chair that way as well. It really does help as a programmer and those things that go along with the job. I can have the code open on one screen and a document open on another. It can definitely be done without a second monitor, but the process takes probably four times longer.

When I got back into the workforce in 2021 I was a contractor. In that case, I didn’t even have options to requisition additional job hardware so I bought my own. I held off as long as I could but it was just so inefficient flipping back and forth amongst screens that the cost was worth it.

Should you have a travel monitor? That depends. How much mobile work do you do (meaning not having a dedicated space)? How valuable is having a second screen? How small is you laptop? I purchased one a few weeks ago so that I could move from my office to the dining room table while my wife was in bed. Here are some of the things that I learned.

  1. Setting all of that stuff up every day is a pain. It probably takes 5-10 minutes for setup and take down.
  2. It is hard to get comfortable in a confined space. There are extra cords for the monitor and to be effective, the monitor has to be positioned correctly. This interferes with where I want to place and use the mouse.
  3. If you truly are travelling, this adds a lot of weight and bulk. My backpack has room for two laptops. I must warn that it is heavy.
  4. It has been helpful for my work however. I can do all the things I do in my office, just not quite as well.

I think that I am going to come down on the side of ‘I like the idea more than the practice’. It is worth all of the effort for setup if I am going to stay in one spot all day but not moving from place to place. If and when I am travelling for work, I very well may not take it unless I can leave my setup day after day. Travel work is usually more support work and not document writing, having a second screen is less necessary in those cases.

End Your Programming Routine: Should you get a travel monitor? My advice is no unless you absolutely need two monitors to work. It really is not worth the space, time and hassle. Since I am at home, it really isn’t a big deal but I really don’t see myself actually travelling with it.

March 7, 2024 – Say It To Make It Happen

March 7, 2024 /

I started off the week talking about how little I feel like I have accomplished this winter. The truth is, at that point I had a lot of irons in the fire and for quite some time. I didn’t have dedicated time scheduled to do any of the work and it seemed like each project was dragging on.

Wouldn’t you know that the log jam has broken. I finished my third duct. I have one more to go and it is a partial installation. It is still not done-done but the momentum is there as well as the desire. I was dreading the rewiring and the unknown. I also knew that once I started, I was committed and there were also limited stopping points. In addition to that, I brewed my next batch of beer. I went to the range for the first time in months. I did it all while weaving all my other obligations in at the same time.

I didn’t say those things to get me motivated. But, somehow by putting them front of mind, I found a way to push to the end. This is a technique that is very helpful when you want to get stuff done. It is one of the values of using a list. This puts tasks front and center of what needs to get done.

There is a psychological satisfaction of crossing things off the list for sure. But, the real value of the list comes down to the ability to triage and prioritize. Priority comes down the the time and resources we have, external deadlines and the desire to do it. The last one is subjective and can have a strong influence for me. My desire to do something my not outweigh the consequences of penalties on external deadlines.

That is all good and well but really I am talking about the power of committing to doing something. It is what makes ultra-marathoners complete the race, the person getting out of debt or the someone learn a new language. They put the goal first of mind and then develop habits around it.

If I were to say, ‘I’m going to get in shape’. Then I am going to evaluate my diet and my physical exertion. I am not going to get in shape if I do not make changes to support at least one of those two parameters. Each one of those things will have sub-steps and challenges unto their own.

Even if I change diet and add exercise, I still may not get into shape. I will be in a better position for sure, but to be in shape I need to do those steps with intent. Maybe to you in-shape means to finish a 5K or maybe it means finishing a 5K under 15 minutes. You need explicit benchmark goals to correctly evaluate whether you are on the right path.

Putting the goal of getting in shape front of mind means that I will have to research recipes or purchase food that in not described as cheese puffs. I means that I will have to dedicate some time a day or week to exercise. That has to become part of my calendar or schedule when planning other things. Or said another way, it has to become front of mind.

End Your Programming Routine: Mastering this is not easy. I haven’t done so. I also find that the older I get the more susceptible I am to desire. I desire not to do that so I pay someone to mow the grass. We all have these conflicts. The real secret is harnessing the time and resources we do have on the things that are important for us to do. Those are the things that we need to keep front of mind.

May 9, 2023 – (Sunday) We Have a Free Day, Let’s Go to Costco… No

May 9, 2023 /

I am sure that I violated some kind of title rules with punctuation and choppiness. But this is what I want to say today. It has been a long time since I have talked about productivity and planning. Today I wanted to share my philosophy to prove that I have my priorities all jumbled up.

At this point in our lives, we are slaves to the schedule. In between our own commitments and our kids (let’s not forget Mother’s Day is coming up). It is really hard to get a down day in. I tend to look at things in the light of what can I do on a weeknight versus what needs to wait for a weekend.

We usually do a monthly shop at Costco for groceries. Since we are planning a Mother’s Day dinner, we need to get some stuff for that as well. Looking at what was happening this weekend, we say Sunday afternoon was open. My wife said, we need to go to Costco. I said no.

First of all, we don’t need to go to Costco. We have several grocery stores in town and we are not really out of anything given our well stocked freezers and pantry. It is not exactly convenient being thirty minutes away. There is also the commitment of putting things away. Because once you start, you are committed until at least the refrigerated and frozen items are put away.

Another reason I don’t want to go on the weekend is that it is the very worst time to be at Costco. Parking is a mess, the stores are full. But, there is a third and more overriding reason to not do this. That is, this is a task that can be done during the week. Whereas, there are many things that I really cannot do on a weekday.

Did I use my time wisely? Maybe, maybe not. I ended up coming home late from trap, I transferred my beer from the primary to the secondary, I changed the oil in the pickup, we played tennis as a family and I spent some time with my wife watching a movie. I would argue that any one of those tasks could have been done on a weeknight. But what doesn’t happen is unstructured time in large blocks.

I need some time that I can just do what I want. It makes me feel like I have some control in my life. Looking at the week ahead, I have the following schedule Monday – YMCA meet and greet, Tuesday – Incoming Freshman activity fair (for trap), Wednesday-Friday – Tennis Districts, Saturday – Trap and Mother’s day dinner Sunday – Mother’s Day. The truth is, I really don’t have an open day this week. That being said, I am sure that there is going to be some time in the evening Wednesdy through Friday. I just don’t have the precise schedule until we get there.

My schedule has not been much different this entire spring. Between sports and my kids getting ready for exchange, it seems like everyday is penciled in something. I will also offer an alternative way of looking at things. Don’t wait for the weekend to do things, do what you can during the week. It is not about the day of the week but the efficiency of the job with the blocks of time available.

End Your Programming Routine: Summer is coming and this marathon will change. Notice I didn’t say end. When you are a distance runner, when you see the finish line you run as fast as you can. This is called the push. We are in the push phase with the family. In a little over a year, I will have one in school. When the choice is either family tennis or going to Costco, the choice should be pretty clear. Choose the right time for the right task.

September 23, 2020 – Fall is here

September 23, 2020 /

It feels like there are a lot of half done or almost done things around here. I have got apples in buckets waiting to get canned, I am halfway through last month’s book, the dog’s invisible fence wire is laying on the ground, the trailer is almost filled with a load to go to Habitat for Humanity, my leaf blower is kind of working, my dirt pile is waiting to get moved away from the house, the shop is almost cleaned up from my last project and I am in the middle of troubleshooting a new/used CD carousel as examples.

I have said multiple times that this is the harvest time and it very well can be the most busy time of year. Obviously, some things have a greater sense of urgency than others. For instance, the apples need to get dealt with in the next day or two. Items outside would be better served doing now before the weather turns. We are expecting rain for the next four days but we should get some nice weather after that. Temporarily, it seems like the outside to-do’s need to wait.

Sometimes I suffer from too many interests and a focus on the wrong priorities. Take for instance the CD player, I bought that on a whim at Goodwill and I figured at eight dollars, it would be no sweat if it really didn’t work. Well, it almost works, I replaced the belt to open the drawer and with a little finger pressure it opens and closes but not by itself. This leads me into a spiral of research and more testing. I keep thinking one more quick test before I move onto other things and pretty soon, those quick things add up to real time and certainly focus on the wrong things.

I also tend to be very single minded. I focus on one project to the exclusion of most everything else. Take for instance my remodeling project. That was everyday, all day. I suppose some of my urgency was knowing that was the kind of effort necessary to get it done it a timely fashion. However, I really did prioritize it over many things, including eating at times. I definitely couldn’t relax knowing how much work was to be done.

One thing that has usually worked for me is keeping a list of things that need to get done. That list get’s prioritized and then steps are broken up into subtasks on a calendar. I have had projects get stalled for years sometimes like when I built my potting bench. After I finally got tired of the lumber being in my way, I broke down the remaining to dos and assigned tasks into daily achievable milestones on the calendar. I gave myself about a month to finish and I completed the project in two weeks.

The advantage to using a calendar format is that it also integrates planning into all the other life commitments as well making a more realistic plan for completion. I usually only do it intensively for a couple of weeks out or the duration of one project otherwise it is too cumbersome to shift around on an Excel document frequently. The disadvantage is that it is time intensive. One of the reasons that I don’t use this format as much as I would like is that it takes a lot of time to plan successfully. I could probably spend thirty minutes a day going over this file if I tried. So, I try to set a rough plan for the week and adjust it next week.

I have been using this file since 2003. My active use waxes and wanes depending on how much I have to do and how much planning time I spend. There are times when I open it every day and there are times when I open it once every month. I just depends. I guess that this is my version of a project management program.

I feel like this would be a good mobile app to build, I would certainly use it. I would also be interested in hearing about other productivity tools. Let me know if there is something better out there with goalsetting and project management. As you can see, I have a lot of work to do.