Using a Planner Part 4

I haven't actually used this technique since I'm still formulating it. I just want to describe the idea and maybe, by putting it down in words, I might come up with something.

When I receive a long term goal, I need to track my progress. That's because my boss wants to be informed of how far along I am in achieving the goal. When we talk about the goal, he's always asking what I've done so far, what I still need to do and, the really vague part, how many percent complete is the job.

How can I say, with some certainty, how many percent along I am in completing the job? In my case, it's always been a guess and my boss has usually accepted my guesses at face value. Sometimes, however, after saying it's 75% complete, I get a thrashing of sorts when the job takes several months to actually complete. It's kinda difficult to answer the question, "How could it take three months to finish the last 25% of the job?"

So, I needed to come up with a progress tracking method. Outlook's Task List has a feature where you can choose the percent complete. It's just an drop-down box where you can choose the percentage. That's' nice but it doesn't help you determine what number to choose. So, here's how I'm planning to do it:

I plan to cut up each task into five to ten steps or mini-tasks. In our office, we call these "milestones."

Let's say you have a task that says, "Organize a meeting for the team at the Neville Hotel on March 22, 2012."

You breakdown the task into a list of steps or mini-tasks. One such list might be:

1. Obtain the list of people who need to be a the meeting.
2. Call/Visit the Neville Hotel and ask for a reservation for a function room.
3. Inform all attendees about the meeting.
4. Two days before the meeting, remind everyone about the meeting.
5. Attend the meeting.

Since I have five steps, I can allot each step a 20% value. When I finish Step 1, I put 20% on the % Complete box. When I finish Step 2, I increase the % Complete to 40% and so on. When Step 5 is finished, I put 100%. Don't mind the Status box. As soon as you put a value more than 0% into the % Complete, the Status will be updated to "In Progress." When the value is 100%, it automatically becomes "Completed."

You don't have to evenly divide 100% into your number of steps. In the example above, you can put 10% for Step 1, 50% for Step 2, 70% for Step 3, 90% for Step 4, and 100% for Step 5. It depends on you if you want to assign a bigger or smaller percentage to a step.

Well, I guess that's it for this series. I hope someone finds something useful for themselves here. Let's keep those tasks rolling.

Using a Planner Part 3

At work, we have a system wherein my boss would give me a list of goals or jobs that he wants me to achieve or finish by the end of the year. This is how our performance is rated and determines how much our bonus will be as well as our increases and chances for promotion. These goals usually number between three to five depending on complexity and/or quantity of work.

Previously, I'd allot time each day to attend to these goals and, hopefully, finish them by the end of the year. I'd work on one of them for about one, two or three hours and move to the next one. Sometimes, I'd work on one of them for less than an hour.

This method has not been very efficient or effective. Every time I stopped working on one job, I have to reorient myself when I go back to it. Since I do this to all of my jobs, I kept trying to remember where I left off and what I should do next. This is the way my boss insisted I do things and I happen to be a very obedient employee.

In addition to these year-long goals, I also get numerous little jobs that need to get done. Everyday is a struggle to allot time to all these little things and the big important things. Include all the meetings I have to be in and you get an idea of how frustrated I feel with all the things that need to get done. In the final months of the year, I'm always working double-time to finish the year-long goals and still do all the other jobs required of me.

This year, I decided I'd change tactics. The way I thought about it goes like this:
Let's say I have five jobs I need to complete in five days. I could go about it in two ways:

1. Allot about one hour and 36 minutes for each job per day.
2. Work and complete one job per day.

Note that all five jobs will be finished within those five days using any of the two methods. So, working on all five jobs everyday is the same as working on one job per day. Potentially, at least in my case, working on one job per day may actually be faster since I won't have to re-orient my self.

Next, let's say that I have six jobs to do in five days. Let's also say that, in reality, these six jobs will need six days to complete. If I allot equal time per day to each job, I will finish none of them after five days. Not good, not good at all. However, if I work on one job per day, in five days, I will finish five of them. Five out of six is much better than zero out of six.

All this thinking has drawn me to the conclusion that working on one job at a time is the way to go. This year, therefore, I've scheduled my goals one after the other instead of trying to do them all at the same time.

Of course, it's nearly impossible to work on one job per day. Some jobs need to be set aside because it needs to wait for something else to happen or for someone to provide input which is not available right away. When that happens, I open the task in Outlook and type the date and what I did and what I need to do next. No more guessing or trying to remember. Then I move on to the next job on the list.<

I also used to dread receiving other, smaller jobs that my boss assigns to me. Lots of times, these jobs are urgent and need to be acted upon immediately. Not a problem anymore. Open the Task List, enter the details of the new task, update the task that I was doing before being interrupted and start on the new one. When I finish the new task, I update its status and click "Complete." It disappears from my active list and automatically goes into my list of completed jobs. Then I go back to the previous job.

That's one of the wonderful things about Outlook's Task List. I use the list of completed tasks to show my boss that I've been busy and actually done some work. It gives him an idea of how effective I am. It also tells him if I'm being assigned too many extra jobs. Last year I completed only four out of five goals I was given at the beginning of the year. Normally that would have initiated a lecture on being efficient or how it would affect my bonus or promotion. Seeing the long list of extra jobs, however, made my boss consider that I had been assigned a little too much.

Next up...tracking your progress.

Using a Planner Part 2

I'm going to Cebu with my daughter this weekend so I decided I'd write something now so I can stick to my promise. I don't have an IPad, laptop or notebook with which to make my entries while I'm away. That's one of my goals for this year, getting a laptop or notebook or even a netbook just for staying in touch through the internet.

In my last post, I described how I did things before and how my methods didn't really work. I needed something to improve my efficiency somehow.

In the article, "Using Daily Planners Effectively - How to use the most important time management tool," they described how a planner can be used to manage your time and jobs. One of the first tips is this: When you receive a job request or you come up with one, schedule it for tomorrow or on some future date. The jobs you already have today, you do today. If a new job comes in today, you do it tomorrow. This isn't procrastination. It's practical.

If you just keep a list, like I did, and have the whole list in front of you, you'll wonder how you'll get to all of them. If you schedule your jobs, you'll have only the list for today in front of you. It looks manageable and relieves some of the stress.

How many should you have on your list per day? You're the best person to answer that question. It depends on the complexity of the jobs and how fast you do your work. Some jobs will be quick and some will take longer to finish. For now, you'll probably schedule too much or too little. As you go on, you'll be better at estimating how much a particular job needs in terms of time.

What if you don't finish the jobs for today or an urgent job comes along? Just reschedule the jobs that you didn't finish to tomorrow. For urgent jobs, you put them on the list (just to record at least) and do them now. You may have to move one or more jobs to another day but that's assuming that the job you deferred is less important than the one displacing it.

When I first did this, I developed two lists: one for today and another for tomorrow. The one for tomorrow had everything less the six to eight jobs that I put for today. Not the right way to do it. I discovered that some jobs could be done several days, even months, later. Almost magically, I found that the list had seemingly shrunk and I suddenly felt a sense of relief. It had not shrunk, of course, but seeing a small list everyday is less stressful than seeing a long line of jobs everyday.

This was where Outlook helped. When you add a task to the Task List, you specify the Due Date (when you need to finish it). There's also a space for Start Date. In this space, I put the date when i received the job or task. Next, there's a space for putting a reminder. In the reminder, I put the date when I intend to do the job. When you do this, Outlook will generate a reminder list box that will pop up on your screen on the same date as the reminder. All tasks that have a reminder for a particular date will appear in the list for that day.

Here's an example of how I use Outlooks Task List to plan my work.

Let's say I need to order a part. I open a blank task and on the Due Date, I put the date when I need to have the part in my hands which can be up to three months later. On the Start Date, I put the date today. Then, on the reminder space, I put the date tomorrow. When I save and close the task, the job won't appear on my list until tomorrow. I can then concentrate on doing those jobs that I scheduled today.

The next day, I fill out an order form, get my manager to sign it and send it off to Purchasing. Purchasing will take my order form, create a Request for Quotation and fax it off to several suppliers. The quotations may take several days to arrive so I change the reminder date to the next week to follow up with Purchasing.

Let's say the quotations arrive and I review them and decide on which supplier will get the order. I make my choice and send it back to Purchasing who will convert it into a Purchase Order. This can take another week so I change the reminder date again to the next week. The task again disappears from my list and I can go on without thinking of it for another seven days.

When my reminder comes up again, I call Purchasing and ask them if the Purchase Order has been sent out. Let's assume that it has. The supplier promised that the item will be delivered, say, in six weeks. I change the reminder again to six weeks later. Hopefully, the item will be delivered before the six weeks is over and I can change the status of the task to "completed." Otherwise, I will get a reminder six weeks later to follow up with the supplier.

That's essentially how it works. It's easy and simple and I don't feel so hassled everyday.

More next week.

Using a Planner Part 1

Almost didn't get to make my scheduled entry. My eight-year old daughter had been asking to use the computer for some time but I kept putting her off. She quietly sat beside me, waiting patiently, watching what I was doing. Then she put her head on my shoulder and that's when I caved in. I let her play her Tetris for an hour or so.

What I wanted to share this week was on using a planner. At the office, I use Microsoft Outlook's Task List and Calendar. When I first used the Task List, it was just a list of jobs. It quickly became such a long list that I despaired of ever finishing anything. Add a boss who insisted on my doing multiple things at the same time and you'd have a formula for stress. I either needed a lesson in time management or organizing my work.

I thought of using the internet to find a planner that I could load into my cellphone and use to organize things. Thus far, I have been unsuccessful. In my search, however, I found several articles on time management. One in particular gave me such a clear idea of what to do that I decided to use it. The webpage is http://www.time-management-success.com/daily-planners.html and after about a week, I finally got the hang of it.

The essence of using a planner is to put a buffer on your jobs. They mentioned a book, "Do It Tomorrow" by Mark Forster. Unfortunately, I'm a little cash-strapped so I am unable to buy the book for now. The article did, however, describe the essentials.

Before I get to the essence, I think I'll describe how I did things before.

I mentioned that I had a list of jobs in Outlook's Task List. When someone asked me to do something or I thought of something that needed to be done, I put it on the list. Unfortunately, that's all I did. I just put it on the list.

Everyday, I'd choose an item from the list and work on it. If I finished it, I marked the task as complete and it would disappear from the active list. If I didn't, the task would stay on the list, unchanged. I didn't use reminders, I didn't write anything about status or even when I expected or intended to finish the job. It was just a list.

A lot of times, I didn't even put a job on the list. When I received a job to do and it was urgent, I did it right away without putting it on the list. If I finished it, I'd have no record of it. If I didn't finish it and still didn't put it on the list, it's almost a sure thing that I'd forget it.

Another problem was choosing which job to do first. I'd pick one at random or if I thought it was easy or can be finished quickly. If someone follow up on a job, I'd drop what I was doing and pick up his request. No attempt at negotiation or anything. It was all haphazard and confusing. It was also driving me crazy.

So here came the article and I decided to try it out.

Next week, I'll tell you how it it went. Furthermore, by next week, I'd have learned a few more things and I can add those too.

Wrong post date

I just went through my posts and found that the last post was dated November 28. Actually, I started writing it on that date and only posted it last week. When you're in the job I'm in, December is a very busy time.

Anyway, I'm putting a reminder in my cellphone to make posts every week. Saturday would be a good time. It's not Saturday so I guess I'd better close this hehe

Writer's Block

As I typed the title, I stopped to think about what to actually write. Oops! A touch of writer's block just occurred!

I've always been a thinker. I usually spend time thinking about what to write before I actually set it down on paper (or the screen, as the case may be). From what I read about writer's block, that's the prime reason for getting it. I'm not saying that you shouldn't write a sensible article or blog post but the trick is to keep typing and fix it later. Perfectionists like me don't like to do that.

Being a perfectionist, however, doesn't mean that you need to do it right the first time. One aspect of being a perfectionist is to keep finding something to fix or correct until you can't find one anymore. There's always something to improve.

I started a blog once. I meant it more as a journal than anything. I found that writing came easy when you're just relating something that happened. You have an experience, type it in, edit and post. It was simple and quick. I had it for about three years. Then I discovered Facebook and started writing stories in my Notes almost every night. It got to the point where I practically abandoned my blog. In a flash of impulse, I decided to delete that blog (something I regret now) and start another about writing.

This type of blog is a little more difficult, especially since I'm just starting. I have to come up with a topic and type up the draft. Then I have to go back over it to improve it for readability, to add or remove things, search for errors in spelling and punctuation. Unfortunately, my tendency is to go back over it before I finish it. That's one of the causes of writer's block in my case. The chain of thought is broken and I have to reacquire it in order to get back on track.

One other reason for getting writer's block is the obsession with accuracy. What did that person say exactly? How does that thing work, exactly? When did that happen, exactly? Everytime I encounter something that I just need to know, I stop and research. Sometimes, the research takes some time and by then, I'm either not in the mood or other.

I'm going to challenge myself this time. I'm going to write little posts at least every week (hey, I have other things to do, you know). Keep writing whatever comes to mind and keep going without stopping. When I decide that I'm finished, I'll go back over the post to edit it before publishing it. They say, if I keep doing it this way, I'll be more productive and...happy. Productivity = happiness I guess.

The Challenge of Proofreading

If you're a financially challenged indie-author like me, you probably do your own proofreading. My English is passable but the occasional typo and punctuation error does creep in.

So, how did I do my own proofreading?

My book started as a series of Facebook notes which I then copy-pasted into MS Word 2003. Then I rewrote the whole book, adding more stories and changing some passages to make it more readable or fun to read. When I decided that the book was finished, I began proofreading.

I went through the whole book, correcting as I went. I used no aids, just trusting in my own abilities. Not surprisingly, I found a lot of typos. I also found errors in punctuation and, on one instance, a missing period. I made several proofreading passes through the book and found something to fix each time. I lost count of how many times I went through the book before I decided that it was well and truly finished and then uploaded it into Smashwords. About a month or so later, I had to download a copy from the website after I accidentally deleted my own copy in my computer. I reread it again and, imagine my chagrin when I found a couple of errors. Where had they been hiding? I thought I'd found all of them.

I am going back through the book again but I've had to revise my methods of proofreading to do a better job of it.

Lesson 1: Use the MS Word spell checker

Did I hear a gasp? I've read dozens of articles or warnings never to use this tool. The spell checker, however, is great for finding misspelled words. The problem with this tool is that it won't catch misused words. If your sentence is:

I will bee seeing you.

The spell checker will not consider "bee" as a misspelled word because the word "bee" can be found in an English dictionary and it is correctly spelled. Your eyes are better at finding these types of errors.

MS Word also has a grammar checker, which I use sparingly. I tend to use passive sentences occasionally if I think it works better than an active one but I do take its advice sometimes.

Lesson 2: Don't run a marathon

No, I don't mean don't run before proofreading. What I mean is, don't go through the whole book or document in one go or in a few sittings. Take frequent rest stops to keep yourself alert. If you keep proofreading for several hours, you'll get fatigued and might miss a lot of mistakes. If you have to go to the bathroom, go now; don't wait until you're bursting because your mind will concentrate on the discomfort rather than on the words.

Lesson 3: Read each word

This runs counter to a tip one former teacher taught my classmates and me. When you read, don't look at one word, look at two or more words. You'll finish faster and understand better. That's fine when you're studying or reading silently but not when you're proofreading. You have to look at each word. A variation on this method is to read aloud. I've caught a lot of errors with this one. It also helped me to revise certain sentences that "didn't sound right."

Lesson 4: Have a dictionary handy

If you use a word that you're not familiar with or sense that your spelling is not correct, there's a chance that it really is misspelled. Look it up in the dictionary. You might even discover that it didn't mean what you thought it meant. I have a dictionary in my computer but I also have a large paper dictionary. You can also use online dictionaries on the Internet.

Proofreading isn't a job for the impatient. I've read several ebooks that I banished into the recycle bin in my computer because of the quantity of errors. A book full of errors is not going to make a good impression and readers might tend to avoid the authors of those books.