I also get a lot of interruptions, about one hour's worth a day. These interruptions are an important part of serving my customers' needs, so I also allocate time for them.
Tip
If I've set up a mutual interruption shield, I write "MIS" for the time I'm the shield. Any project work I get done during that time is a bonus.
Now you can calculate how many hours of work you have to do, and it turns out to be 11.25 hours! With only 8 hours to do 11.25 hours of work, it's time to prioritize. Any "due today" items immediately become A priority. The tape library issue was an A yesterday, which we half-completed. Therefore, finishing that task is obviously an A priority today.
Prioritize and reschedule
How do you prioritize the Tickets and Interruptions items? Well, they have to be done every day, so they should be As. However, Interruptions is sort of a buffer just in case you are interrupted, so you can be flexible and mark that item as a B.
There are a few Bs and lots of Cs (which is normal). Thus, you have something that looks like Figure 5-9.
Figure 5-9. Tuesday's tasks after filling in all time estimates and priorities
Yesterday, the sum of the As and Bs was more hours than could fit into your day, so you had to use our techniques to shift work to the next day. Today, the sum of the As and Bs is only 6.25 hours. Because that will fit in your eight-hour day, there isn't any overflow that we have to move.
I've found that if I only have a few As and complete them early in the day, the rest of the day is more relaxed. I do my Bs and as many of the other tasks as possible, and when the end of the day comes, I move the incomplete work to the next day without guilt. It's a lot less stressful this way, and it allows me to deal with interruptions a lot better. Let's use that technique today.
You won't slide any tasks onto Wednesday's to do list right now. As you'll see, you'll do that at the end of the day, if necessary.
Work the plan
Now you work on the As until they are complete. Working on tickets might generate more action items for you. For example, if a request is not going to be completed in one sitting, you can add it to your to do list. Let's say ticket #43001 from RT involves fixing a nightly batch job and then verifying that the fix worked. You can fix the problem, then create a to do item on the next day to verify that the change fixed the problem (Figure 5-10).
Figure 5-10. Adding a request-tracking ticket to Wednesday
If another ticket involves ordering software and installing it, you might order the software today and then write an item for the day that you expect it to arrive.
I use my organizer to track any ticket that I'm actively working on. The list of tickets that I own, however, is much longer; therefore, I don't include them in my personal to do list. I use my to do list only to track the things I'm actively working on and things that I need to do on a specific date in the future.
PDA Integration for Request-Tracking Software
I have not seen request-tracking software that integrates with PDAs. I'm sure it exists, I just haven't seen it yet.
If a request-tracking system were integrated into PDA software, I might track tickets I was actively working on as As or Bs, and all on-hold tickets would be tracked as Zs. I could imagine that when a ticket grows closer to its deadline, the system would automatically promote it to an A priority. The key feature of such a system would be to insert tickets into my to do list but not require everything in my list to be a ticket. If I include "pick up laundry" in my to do list, I don't want the system to enter that into the corporate database.
Next, you work on the Bs. Since Interruptions is a buffer, you don't have to stand around doing nothing if nobody interrupts you.
Finish the day and leave the office
At the end of the day, you spend a few minutes managing the remaining items. The tasks that haven't been completed are moved to the next day, and you leave the office with a smile on your face knowing that you've managed all of your tasks.
Other Tips
The system is flexible enough that as you face new situations, you can adapt the system to handle them. This section lists some of the techniques I've found useful.
Large Projects
When dealing with a large project, split it into individual steps and sprinkle the tasks across to do lists on different days. For example, write a step on each Monday during the month that the task must be completed.
What to Do When You Finish Early
What should you do when a miracle happens and you run out of things to do? I think you should reward yourself. Here are some good reward ideas:
Get a head start on tomorrow's tasks.
Dig deep into that pile of dream projects that you've always wanted to do.
Read from that stack of magazines that's been accumulating.
Go through your request tracker and clean up old tickets.
Clean your office, your email inbox, your computer room, or lab.
Visit your boss's office and ask for more work. (Just kidding!)
Sit in your office for 15 minutes doing nothing. Trouble will find you.
If you have a flexible work environment, why not take the rest of the day off? You deserve it!
New Tasks Given to You During the Day
Let's suppose you've planned the perfect day. You have calculated each task down to the minute, and you know you'll be done and ready to leave right at the end of the day.
Of course, thinking like this is asking for trouble. It's days like this that your boss comes into your office around 2 p.m. with a "brilliant" idea that includes many multihour tasks, thereby disrupting your perfect plan.
That is, of course, why I only recommend planning rough estimates of how long tasks will take.
So, what do you do when new tasks are thrown at you all day long? We've already seen the technique of scheduling one hour per day for interruptions, but when a much longer project interrupts (say, a three-hour outage), we must reshuffle.
Calculate how much time you have left in the day and see whether your A and B priorities will fit into that time. If not, use the techniques to shift them to the next day. Usually all the Bs and Cs get shifted. If there isn't enough time for your A priorities, you need to talk with the person expecting those tasks to be completed. It may be your boss, who will hopefully understand and help you reprioritize your tasks. However, it may be someone else, and he deserves at least an email explaining that there was an emergency and that his request will be completed tomorrow.