Here is a suggestion on how to identify what to measure:

1. What is causing you pain?
2. What causes the pain to occur?

Step 1 is all about prioritization. Pain is bad. If something is causing you pain, you want to stop it. You need to stop it. So pick the thing/item/problem that is causing you the most pain. This is what you need to improve or fix.

Step 2 is looking at what is causing the pain to occur in the first place. Once you know the factors that are contributing to the pain, you can try to change them. If you are doing the right thing, the factors contribute less, and the pain should go down.

For example: Let us say I want to write more python code. My day job doesn’t involve much python, so I feel like I’m being left behind because all of the cool kids on reddit are talking about the fun they are having writing python code.

The pain: Not being able to write in the language I want to. The cause: Day job doesn’t use python.

Addressing the cause will affect the “pain”. If you get a different job (e.g. one that involves writing python code) then you have solved both problems.

But what if you can’t just switch jobs? Then you try experimenting with writing python code for your own personal use. Try writing it to solve scripting problems on your PC at work. If that makes you feel better, then you are moving in the right direction. If you try writing open source code in python in your after work hours, but it winds up stressing you out, then you are moving in the wrong direction. (Or you’ve identified that there might be a different problem than what you originally though there was!)

By tackling the sources of your pains, and applying small changes there, you can get a measure of where your efforts are going. Sometimes these measures are going to be cold hard numbers, and sometimes they are just going to be “feelings”. But either way, they are indicators of how you should change your processes and habits in order to become more successful.

What you can measure, you can manage.

I just watched a new video from Giles where he talks about how you can improve your programming productivity. Its a really good short video that hits the nail on the head. If you want to make a change, guessing about what to fix won’t cut it. You need to measure what you are doing, and then adjust accordingly.

The quote at the top was in the video, and I have to say I don’t think I had ever heard it before. But as soon as I heard it I knew it was 100% correct. Think about it: everyone who is in charge of things in you life (bosses, teachers, parents, etc.) track what you do to some extent. When you step out of line, they know about it and are able to let you know. Why? Because they are “measuring” you progress via grades, work done, chores completed, etc.

So if it works for them, why can’t it work for you? Track the things that are important to you, and see if you can make a positive change.

I’ve been hemming and hawing lately about tracking things like my programming projects or seeing if my neighborhood association really is increasing the house values. The time for action is now.

My first step: Putting widget on this blog to track my BitBucket RSS feed. If I’m going to work on a project out in the open why not let everyone know about it? This way if I’m not being productive, it will be pretty visible.

(As a side note, this is something that Giles has mentioned before that I really believe in: If you are a programmer, you should have some project out in the public eye. Open source is a good thing. Contributing to open source is a great thing. Being known as a programmer who contributes to open source software is the best thing.)

My next step: Start treating time tracking on my projects as a first class citizen. I’m starting a new sprint tomorrow: I’m going to track my time better. Also, I’m going to add some tasks to my Satellite Tracking project so I can make sure I’m on task when I’m working on it.

Thanks Giles, that video was a good kick in the ass.

Success comes in cans, failure comes in can’ts.

So, I began making lists. As soon as things started to appear in a nice neat ordered list, it became apparent what had to be done (and the order to do it in).

A lot of programmers like to just jump into a problem and start coding. Sometimes that’s what is needed, but a lot of times what is needed is a plan (no matter how vague) of where you want to go, and how you plan to get there. A To Do list is a basic type of a plan, and once you start organizing on any level, it tends to snowball until your whole project is encompassed by the plan.

At least that’s what should happen if you want to get things done. A Big Plan is made of many Small Plans. By following through on the small plans, you are following the big plan. I can’t believe I let that wisdom escape me, its so fundamental!

So, if you are interested in GTD and are running on a Mac, go get Voodoo Pad and try it out. It rocks.

Upon further reflection, I think I have found the reason why it did not work. For me GTD is about a To Do list that is generated based on very small tasks that need doing in the near future (i.e. the next things for me to do). As a result of this, I never fully implemented the calendar part of the GTD system. The calendar/tickler works by “remembering” things for you that will happen in the future. Since I was only concerned about the near future, I’ve never really done anything with the calendar.

School is built around calendars. Everything, every lesson, every test, is scheduled on a calendar. Combining this information with the topics being covered in the class can yield a To Do list that is several weeks out.

Most people probably know this as a syllabus. One day I’ll learn to look at it.

Now that sounds like a really obvious statement, but I don’t think that it is. Think about it this way: If you were asked to make a list of all of the tasks that you need to do in order to launch a rocket into space, how long would your list be? If you are a person who works with rockets a lot, you list might be very long and very detailed. If you are someone who doesn’t work with rockets often your list will probably be pretty short and very general. Guess whose To Do list will be more likely to lead to a successful rocket launch…

While in school, you are typically learning about a topic that you don’t know a lot about. Attempting to make a To Do list that captures the steps necessary to learn something can be difficult if you don’t know or understand everything you are dealing with. That has been my problem, my To Do lists have been too simple for the task I was trying to accomplish.

First I had to let a few things slip because more important tasks came up. Then it became difficult to get the old tasks done (mostly school work) because they had a firm due date which had been moved up from what it had been originally. Needless to say, this caused a lot of stress for me, which I noticed in turn caused me to be less productive (tasks took longer to finish, etc.).

Now that things have calmed down a bit it has re-ignited my desire to get my to do lists back in order. When things were going smooth I had forgotten about the chaos that had reigned freely before. I had also forgotten how stressful life could be without a plan. Even though you can’t plan around emergencies, I’ve learned that having your to do lists done as soon as you can will save you a lot of grief down the road.

So, find your motivation, make your to do lists/plans, and follow through on them as swiftly as you can. Its better to have free time than to having to be up all night trying to finish something at the last minute.

This makes searching so much easier because the message will be in each category, so you don’t have to worry about missing it because you didn’t guess the right “folder” to look in.

That’s just such a rich idea to me. Plus it can help build contextual information for search engines which will help people find the correct information they are looking for with less effort. That just rocks.

I’ve got a ton of categories on this site, and I’ve tried to make sure that all of my posts are tagged correctly. My hope is that once I get a couple of hundred posts I’ll be able to look at the tags and build a graph of the site. I think that will tell me some interesting things.