Mouse Potato's log, entry 1, yamdate 54.224.
I'm going to keep this one brief, because:
- I intend to take a break starting tomorrow
- This is my first blog post
- If you are reading this, you probably don't think you have a lot of time. (Spoiler alert: You're wrong.)
This post was supposed to be a post about me making an absolutely audacious and arguably asinine attempt at learning SQL better by making a program that can parse and execute SQL commands.
However, I realised I was trying to do too many things at once.
I wanted to make an SQL parser, an SQL command runner, and possibly some kind of user interface to pack this all up with.
And alongside this, I wanted to start working on a project portfolio, a resume, a personal website, a major modding project, a time management tool, and at least five different video game projects.
In the end, I barely managed to begin with the SQL project.
And I've decided to scrap it - at least for now - because I realised I need to think about fewer projects - ideally a binary (0 or 1) amount - at a time in order to get more done.
And I'm guessing you either have a similar problem. (Or you managed to solve it, in which case I'd appreciate some advice in the comments... does dev.to have a comment section? I'll have to check after posting this.)
That should be it for now. See you next week at the soonest, best of luck to all of you, and thanks for all the fish taking the time to read this.
Mouse Potato's log, supplemental
There is, in fact, a comment section on dev.to. That's good to know.
Top comments (7)
Thanks for sharing. I have similar issues of being overly ambitious. What helped me was to detail what I would get done in a wall calendar. The act of actually writing things down makes them more reel for me than having them in a digital calendar. But I try to break my tasks down into chunks, and not overload a day. So one day I might have "update resume", another is "make social post templates", and so on. If I've found that if a task is bigger than I thought, I'll redo the schedule based on what is actually achievable. For instance, if to make a social post template I have to draw a whole bunch of illustrations, I'll set aside a few days for those illustrations, then go back to the template, so I don't feel like I'm running against the clock.
If I find that I've thought of a new project that cannot wait, or I'm not super interested in what I scheduled in for that day and having trouble focusing, I'll move things around whenever possible. Sometimes deadlines mean that I have to power through it, but otherwise I like to give myself the flexibility.
That's just what works for me :) things like time management and focus can be really personal, so it's always good to try and few things and see what can work.
Thank you for the advice! I did something similar with my schedule planning before and might talk more about it in future posts.
Loved reading this. I chose to take baunIT slow this year, one project at a time, thorough as ever :)
Same boat. This time around ive just focused on one project at a time. Nothing else.
This is the way.
Timeboxing. Dedicate some time to specific tasks and goals and schedule them.
clockify.me/timeboxing
The problem is many times you can not rely on other people to help you out with some of the work.
For example, imagine you have a software project, if you say you'll subcontract the frontend to another developer, that developer may let you down and then you'll realise that you should have done it all on your own.