Hello world!

Hey all,

This is Jayden Farrell’s MPI305-2006 blog. This blog, as the title suggests will be focused on the study of work and working methodologies. In particular I will be researching time management tools, specifically but not limited to those useful to animation and special effects.

As I research varying time management tools and striges I will attempt to employ them to my own working methodology. Throughout the semester I will evaluate which methods work best for me, and hopefully develop a much more efficient and effective working method than I currently use.

Tools I currently use:

* Watch/Clock
* Diary (sometimes)
* Calendar (often)
* Memory
* Lists (occasionally)
* Friends (often)
* Mobile Phone Reminders
* Timetables

Strategies I currently employ:

* At the beginning of each day I look at my diary or calendar and see which tasks have the closest deadline and are the most important or time consuming. I adjudicate which tasks have the highest priority and roughly schedule the day into halves or thirds. I then work through the different tasks in order of priority attempting to stick to my rough schedule. All of this is generally done in my head, occasionally I will write out a list.

Analysis of current tools/strategies:

Advantages:

* Allows me plenty of freedom in how I spend my time.
* Gives me the freedom to focus heavily on a singular task and work on it until complete.
* Does not require a rigid routine, this suits my lifestyle and gives me the freedom to accommodate unforseen events into my schedule.
* Because my method is so simple there is very little chance of me becoming distracted and wasting time in an attempt to manage my time.

Disadvantages:

* My method lacks routine.
* It is not specific enough, and lacks deadlines. This results in me spending more time than necessary on some tasks, which leaves me less time for other tasks.
* Because I break time up into such large chunks (a half or third of a day) and allow myself plenty of freedom I often put tasks off I don’t like and just work on pet projects, or things I find enjoyable.
* I work very singularly, working on a task until it is done then beginning another and working through it till it is also done. This makes it very difficult to work on multiple tasks at one time. This can pose large problems when deadlines are tight.

Summary:

My current time management strategy seems to work adequately for me when my projects are small with fairly quick turnovers. However when I have to do a project over a long period of time, or I have many projects going at once, my method doesn’t allow me to easily plan my time and work on many tasks simultaneously.

Advertisement