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My Agile Life: Multitasking. Sort Of.

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com, Steve’s LinkedIn, and Steve’s Tumblr)

More on my use of “Agile” and Scrum in my life!

Agile methods tend to discourage multitasking as well as having a lot on your plate.  The goal is to avoid distractions (with less multitasking) and avoid having a lot on your mind (by limiting work in progress).  Of course, as we always get interrupted, we tend to multitask a bit.  Sometime things almost have to be done together or require such long delays (like a chat) that multitasking is almost needed.

Let me note that I do think you should avoid multitasking.  I do believe in limiting work in progress.  But there are times multitasking is fine or even good.

What I’ve found that in my own life, what helps is to identify what you can do while doing other things.  Preemptive multitasking as it were.

You know what I mean:

  • You’d like to watch some tv, but friends want to chat online – you can do both.
  • You’d like to come up with a shopping list which you can do while watching tv as it’s not a rush.
  • You want to do some online research, so you do it while chatting or on the phone – heck, the other person may have ideas.
  • And so on . . .

You’ll note a lot of this is recreational/social.  This is where I often multitask when doing things that are “gruntwork-like.” Not something requiring intense effort, nor intense focus, but things that have a lot of “bite sized” tasks so I can watch TV or chat to take the edge off.  Sometimes it even helps to have others around.

This has helped me timeshift a lot lately, as well as get more done.  Yes, it’s multitasking, but only when appropriate.

As  a note I will be the first to say that you should avoid multitasking when it reduces your ability to focus, get things done, or do them your best.  I usually do it when the multitasking is something more fun, or social, and so on.  Be careful when you do this until you learn what works for you.

However, if you make multitasking conscious, you can do it right.  You can also choose when not to do it because you’re more aware.

(By the way I do plenty of books for coaching people to improve in various areas, which may also help you out!)

– Steve

Steve’s Update 9/25/2017

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com and Steve’s Tumblr)

It’s my weekly Scrum style standup for my audience, so where am I?

So what have I done the last week?

  • “A Bridge To The Quiet Planet”: Chapter 8 is done and edited.  This is a big one as it’s the halfway point in the book and transitions to the next arc.  It’s a bit of a tricky one as our cast is busy scheming and deceiving, while paying off a favor.
  • Way With Worlds Minibook #4: Publicity is prepared and ready to go.
  • Blog: I’ve queued up a few more posts.
  • Seventh Sanctum: Enjoy the Junker generator in honor of Overwatch’s latest level.
  • General: Been trying to relax a bit more, and had a great time.

What am I going to do this week:

  • Way With Worlds Minibook #4: Launches this week!  Stay tuned!
  • “A Bridge To The Quiet Planet:” I’m going to be doing a general edit this week to work all my notes and ideas into the current story and the plot outline.
  • Other: Gearing up for next month – which is gonna be a busy one.  I also think I need to diversify my blogging – I haven’t done a lot of career stuff lately too.

 

– Steve

A Writer’s View: System Thinking

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com and Steve’s Tumblr)

This Tweet got me thinking:

Neat idea for a creative person, right?  Tracking their creative stages?  It’s a good example of a creative person finding a way to work with their inspiration and habits.  It’s a system.

Good creatives, successful creatives, have systems.  You can hear about the Snowflake Method, or the “X Habits of Whatever,” or endless ideas of how to write novels, or best ways to do art.  You doubtlessly have your own way of organizing your creativity – even if you’re not aware of it.  For all our raging imaginations, it seems we creative people often make ways to organize that fire that burns inside of us.

There are several reasons we do this – reasons we’re not always aware of, but by bringing it into awareness I hope it helps you make your own.

We organize our creativity to ensure things get done.  Being creative is nice, but if there’s no end result, there’s little point unless you’re doing something freeform.

We organize our creativity to provide focus.  So we make sure we don’t loose track, so we can bring projects to completion, so we don’t start anything new.

We organize our creativity to speed time to completion.  We get structure and organization, milestones and ways to track progress – so that creative dream sees the light of day.

We organize our creativity to embody our principles.  We take ideas of what matters, our mad methods, our special tricks and make them formal so we can use them that much easier.

Finally, an an oft missed benefit, is that by organizing our creativity we can find ways to improve.  When you build a system of ideas, of tracking, of documenting you can use that to find new ways to do better.  That organization of imagination can inspire you to think up new ways to get better.

So, go on, take a look at your creativity.  What systems and methods do you have?  What could you build?  How can you provide enough structure to your dreaming to make you dream better?

 

(Remember I do all sorts of books on creativity to help you out!)

– Steve