[sockgrant]

Similar to this, at Google they do "snippets". Every week they write a short e-mail blurb about what they accomplished last week and what they plan to complete this week.

I gave this method a try and it's been great. It helps me stay on task, have goals, and feel good about what I've accomplished. It helps me minimize the "swamped" feeling because I'm actively prioritizing and then knocking those things off the list.

I'm currently trying to do a weekly snippet e-mail to myself, and additionally every morning I make a mini, unofficial snippets of what I'd like to accomplish for the day (generally taking items from the weekly snippets).

[chuckcode]

Seems like there is something important socially about being able to tell others what you plan to do and then after the fact share what you accomplished. As a software engineer it can be difficult when the work is so technical that I can't really share it with anybody easily. Trying to friends and family about how the new code using AVX instructions runs a lot faster in a critical section of the code ends up being underwhelming.

Sites like "finish one thing today" calls out again that constant struggle between curiosity and focus. My natural curiosity has been a huge benefit in my life but it certainly gets in the way sometimes when I need it to turn off so I can just focus on the problem at hand.