Time Management for the Slightly Crap

A 45 Minute NotCon talk by Tom Dolan

• The frustrations of poor time management, and worse time management books
• The problems we face
  • Attention span
  • Being in 'the zone'
  • Distractions
  • Interruptions
  • Being pliable
  • Being overstubborn
  • Bad, or overstretched, managers
• The symptoms we have
  • Running late
  • forgetting to do things
  • Double booking
  • It's just code
  • Running from panic to panic
  • Never having a stable state to visibly disrupt
• False coping strategies
  • Being vague
  • Overestimating without grounds
• Okay, lets get the traditional techniques out of the way...
  • Do it now
  • Don't be distracted by anything
  • Prioritise
  • Do the thing you fear most first
  • Turn off email
  • Use the phone for everything
  • What is the best use of my time right now?
  • Furniture
  • Avoiding meetings with no agenda
  • Deciding not to do things
  • I won't do it now, but I'll just...
  • Hell, it'll do
  • Who judges your success?
  • Handing back the problem
• But all of this underestimates the impact of our mental judo to
  • Stop us doing things we don't want to do
• Mark Forster - the guru
  • I want to do things at the time they need to be done
  • Resistance
  • Halving
  • time limits
  • Spotting bad patterns
  • The 'whats better' list
• Betty Edwards - the secret knowledge
  • Right brain thinking
  • The buzz buzz buzz
  • The unacknowledged wishes
  • Mental interrupts
• The impact of the blank piece of paper
• Pulling it all together
  • The three pieces of paper that solve it all (for me)