Exercise 12: Review

The first stage of my methodic madness is complete for me but not for you. We are now going to review the strategy of this part of the book so you can continue to use it yourself in the future. The strategy is this:

• You need to work on that initial start to every project.

• To isolate this issue you sit down with a set of little projects you can do in 45 minutes. This focuses on the problem area of starting a project and lets you repeat that part of your process.

• As you work on these projects you identify possible causes of your problem starting a project. This can take the form of your computer setup, work environment, mental thought processes, or physical health. There are more, but those are the big possible causes.

• Once you've identified possible causes you work on eliminating or changing them within the small confines of your 45 minute hacks.

• Finally, you record and graph metrics to see if these possible changes are helping but also to make sure they aren't hurting your performance.

This doesn't need to be formal scientific process to be useful. All you need is to treat this as a journal that helps you objectively view how you work. If you're doing it right you'll run into surprising things that you hadn't thought of before. The collection of data forces you to explore new possibilities and expand what you think might be the cause of something.

Please remember that this personal metrics journal should not be shared with others, especially anyone in management. It is innevitable that managers will attempt to impose these metrics on you, and if they do, then you should flat refuse. These are your personal private notes, and nobody has a right to read them--much like a diary or your private email.