Work today

I had taken off Tuesday through Thursday. At the time, I must have thought that I would be closer to having my final two goals finished. I stayed home yesterday to get some stuff around the apartment done. I came in today but as of yet, haven't accomplished much. I have to work on an ECOMS problem, however that's not where much of my day went. It pretty much went nowhere. Not good.

eMail and Clarity

Collins, Monica P. [12:26 PM]:

just got my email down to 9 items

Lacy, Robert P. [12:26 PM]:

LOL!

4065 in my inbox unread

dont even want to look in other folders

Collins, Monica P. [12:26 PM]:

yes, i know how many you have

i can't keep that many; i tend to ignore everything and miss new stuff.

Lacy, Robert P. [12:26 PM]:

i see

Collins, Monica P. [12:27 PM]:

the only reason i wind up with so many is that i will go a couple of days w/o cleaning it out and then i stop cleaning it.

And we all know how, um, 'easy' it is to find 20-30 free moments around here lol.

Collins, Monica P. [12:33 PM]:

Because I didn't go into work, I got my ass in trouble over the blasted clarity, yet again.

Lacy, Robert P. [12:33 PM]:

orly?

Collins, Monica P. [12:35 PM]:

I had not filled out any of it.  When I don't do it on Friday, or Thursday before CDO, I tend to do it on Monday morning before 8am.

So I probably would not have wound up on the report.

Lacy, Robert P. [12:36 PM]:

:O

Collins, Monica P. [12:37 PM]:

I just took a look at when Parnell sent out here email: it was Sunday, so I still would have been screwed.  I have a reminder on my phone to do my Clarity, but I only do it on the weekend very sporatically.

Collins, Monica P. [12:41 PM]:

I had sent a reply to her query as to why the hell I didn't get it filled out - my words - however I retracted it because it would have sounded a bit flippant.

Lacy, Robert P. [12:44 PM]:

dang

Collins, Monica P. [12:45 PM]:

lol why do you say that?

Lacy, Robert P. [12:46 PM]:

curious as to what those words were lolz

Collins, Monica P. [12:47 PM]:

My words?  'As a matter of fact, if you must know, I do have reminders set.', Or something like that.

I've already got the remembering to do it part covered.

Lacy, Robert P. [12:48 PM]:

lol

Collins, Monica P. [12:52 PM]:

Right now, it's avoidance not wanting to interrupt myself, but mostly the former I think lol.

Work today

I worked some while at home today. I kept the TV off, so that I would not spend all of my time watching it. Even so, I was somewhat distracted with my trying to scan patterns on my home PC while working.

Attention

My attention today has not been fantastic. Conferring with Sharon about presents and checking into software specs for ToDo apps. On top of leaving early Monday and Tuesday, I so far have not devoted a lot of extra time to my last two goal items. I'd better get to cracking that whip if I want to get them done in the next month and a half.

Between a rock and a hard place

I wound up short on my time sheet by 9 hours.  The secretary had warned me about it some days ago and delayed doing something, then forgot about it.  If I stop what I’m doing to something else – like taking care of repairing my time sheet – then something gets missed when going back to whatever I was doing, even if so minor a thing like getting back into the right frame of mind, picking up from where I left off, etc.  If I delay doing it, it can fall between the cracks, just as this did.  I’m not sure if I added it to my task list or not.

 

Accomplishments last week

I made decent headway on my project at work last week. I could have accomplished more, except that I started looking for ADHD books in PDF forms for someone at work. Once I got started, I also looked for books to help me better break down programs so that I can find the problems better. Unfortunately after that, I also started looking at craft books and audiobooks.

I skipped the holiday party, selling my ticket to on Thursday because I had gotten behind, not getting a lot of work done. I did good making that choice, because I got my program changes compiled, and started testing those changes.

ClearContext and Outlook

I'm finally starting to put the last component of ClearContext to use, namely creating and utilizing the Task function. One of the things that ClearContext allows for is to take a received email and create a task out of it, without having to jump through so many hoops to accomplish it. Or, I can create a new task without an email. With the Dashboard, I can see all of the tasks that I have that are not related to ongoing projects that I am working on.

Today's Tasks

I've been busy today, however a lot of my time today was spent on a project that was minor. Got too involved in it, yet again. So close, yet so far.

ClearContext and Outlook

I'm getting a somewhat better at using ClearContext to manage incoming mail and creating tasks out of them. I'm still getting into the habit of creating the task. Doing so gives me list to work with, displayed on the ClearContext Dashboard. I'm trying to have that be my main Outlook display. Besides displaying my task list, it also keeps me from watching the inbox, waiting for mail lol.

Pretty good work day

I had a pretty good work day, with only one lapse in interest/focus that stands out. I still have three or four tasks that I need to complete before I leave for the day, mostly CFC items.

Hello, I Am A Digital Hoarder.

Hello, I Am A Digital Hoarder.:

'via Blog this'

My plans for today

Today is Wednesday, September 14, 2011

=è Today’s #1 ç=	=è Due Today ç=	=è Due Tomorrow ç=
SR #12842

URGENT over IMPORTANT (07:30 - 12:00)	IMPORTANT over URGENT (13:00 - 16:00)
SR #12842	SDLC Documentation Print POs / SR #12842

=è Course @ Lunch ç=                                                                                                     =è Course after Work ç=
Problem Framing	Problem Framing

Scratch out any items that I do not get to.  Do NOT modify this list during the day!

Thanks ….

No eMail Notificatiions

I'm going to try turning off notifications again. I will get pop-ups for the 'important' people. The rest I will check when it's convenient, like right before lunch.

Change of plans again

I might have to put off working on my long-term project, the SDLC documentation on Item Recall processing, until I get this particular Service Request finished. Bummer, since that will leave me less time to work on the documentation.

How My Day Is Divided Up

I think that having my workday divided into three parts is the same as when you have trimesters at school. My lunch break in the middle of the second part is like the xmas holidays. It's so hard to get your momentum back after the holidays lol.

Change of plans

I'm going to have to switch to two items a day that I work on, instead of three. I think that is too much of a break-up of my day. By the time I'm getting into whatever it is I'm working on, it's time to switch.

Haruki Murakami: Talent Is Nothing Without Focus and Endurance :: Articles :: The 99 Percent

Haruki Murakami: Talent Is Nothing Without Focus and Endurance :: Articles :: The 99 Percent:

'via Blog this'

How I Planned My Day

Good Day

I had a pretty good day, productivity-wise. Not bad at all, even with my having started late.

email

I've got my work email down to 7 items. I wonder how long I can keep it that way?

Doing much better today

I’m feeling much better today.  I think that the Fanapt is finally out of my system.  I made my second-best time getting to work this morning.  I have been pretty diligent with the two items I set myself to work on today too.  Very nice.

 

I had a craving for eggs today, which means that I needed some protein.

Oops, forgot to mention ...

... that as of this morning, I have gotten a project completed! I even got it done early, so I might get some extra points on my review at the end of the year! Woo-hoo!!!!

Pretty good day today

I actually got a bit of work done today, even with dealing with the residual tasks from yesterday's silent auction. Finally! And, I even was willing to tag my time, probably because I was getting something done. I've noticed that whenever I am anxious to put off tracking my time, I'm usually not being very productive. Due to the med I was trying, I was like that for almost two whole weeks! Jeez!

FW: Time Management ... and saying no ... and 2 Alsos

 

 

From: Collins, Monica P.
Sent: Tuesday, August 16, 2011 7:36 AM
To: Collins, Monica P.; Bradford, Mickey L.
Subject: RE: Time Management ... and saying no ... and 2 Alsos

 

I don’t know if I have mentioned this before, but work wise things took on a whole new perspective when we changed our rating system.  When it was ‘show us what you did’, I did ok.  When it changed to ‘tell us what you will do’ around 2003, things became much harder.

 

I have gotten a few concessions, the most important one being that I don’t have all of my assignments dumped on my at one time.  I’m only expected to be concentrating on one at a time.  I currently have three that I have scheduled myself to work on because two of them are due EOM October.

 

Thanks ….

 

Monica Collins

 

 

From: Collins, Monica P.
Sent: Monday, August 15, 2011 4:12 PM
To: Bradford, Mickey L.
Subject: Time Management ... and saying no

 

I have three things that I have planned to work on this week:

·         SR #12842 (SHOW ZIPS FOR VC ON  CYR-ACS POINT OF ORIGIN), which I have set as due by EOM October;

·         SR #16011 ( CONVERT CATALOG POS TO LASER PRINT), which I have also set as due by EOM October;

·         Work on SDLC Documents, which is due by EOM January.

I also have to spend some time this week preparing my new Windows 7 PC.

 

In the attached PDF, I have included the schedule that I set up for myself to accomplish this year’s goals. 

 

These are various time management courses that I have at one time accessed:

Elements of Project Time Management	Currently taking
The Fundamentals of Effective Thinking	Started
Problem Framing	Will be taking
Problem Solving- Generating Alternatives	Will be taking
Developing Excellent Time Management Habits	Will be taking
Developing Fundamental Critical Thinking Skills	Have taken
Developing Good Time Management Habits	Have taken
Introduction to IT Project Management	Have taken
Techniques for Improved Time Management	Have taken
An Introduction to Project Management	Have taken
Your Time and You	Have taken

 

I’ve included a conversation that I had a bit ago, concerning saying no.  I don’t argue that I help others far too much.  An example would be what caused me to be late to today’s meeting.  I don’t even know if it was my job to handle the little file problem they had (I really doubt it).  And, ‘it’ll only take 5 minutes’ usually doesn’t, although this one was close.  And I do know that adage that a problem on someone else’s part does not constitute a problem on my part.

 

 

Marks, Sanford J. [1:54 PM]:

if I wnat the max amendma=ent number is sql what do i code?

Collins, Monica P. [2:43 PM]:

i think that i used amendment max

i'd have to pull up one of the progrms and see

Marks, Sanford J. [2:43 PM]:

 =

amendment max

?

Collins, Monica P. [2:49 PM]:

Why is PTLDTBLS in byt RETAI and QUALI?

Marks, Sanford J. [2:50 PM]:

because qual does it's own thing

leave it be

Collins, Monica P. [2:55 PM]:

can i submit an endevor package if i am only updating procs and parms?

Marks, Sanford J. [2:57 PM]:

yes

Collins, Monica P. [3:08 PM]:

k, look at paragraph 2000-GET-SINGLE in PTGTANUM.

Marks, Sanford J. [3:09 PM]:

k   ty

 

 

Again

Today, yet again, I have accomplished very little. Sad.

How I Did Yesterday

FW: Conversation with Lacy, Robert P.

 

 

From: Collins, Monica P.
Sent: Tuesday, August 02, 2011 10:16 AM
To: Lacy, Robert P.; Collins, Monica P.
Subject: Conversation with Lacy, Robert P.

 

Collins, Monica P. [7:07 AM]:

k, we need a title for massey

Lacy, Robert P. [7:16 AM]:

rocket scientist

we've all been calling him that

cause technically, he is

Collins, Monica P. [7:18 AM]:

noooo, no, no, i meant since we are now his padiwans(sp).  Mr RS, maybe ...

Lacy, Robert P. [7:18 AM]:

hmm

Collins, Monica P. [7:21 AM]:

k, here's my plan for my iPods:

Collins, Monica P. [7:26 AM]:

* This week, special order a WD 1TB Passport from here.  Because we carry others for this particular make, I should be able to hopefully special order it and also get 20% off as well.  I'll order another one the next time we have 20% off again. 

Collins, Monica P. [7:28 AM]:

Remove most everything from my iPods, except for my favs in each genre.  I'm thinking that I might go ahead and remove the extraneous stuff from iTunes as well, since it is a secondary catalog, because everything resides on external drives.

Lacy, Robert P. [7:28 AM]:

lol

Collins, Monica P. [7:29 AM]:

* And, I'd also keep my videos.  What's so funny?

Lacy, Robert P. [7:29 AM]:

so you will just bring the drive to work

and listen to stuff off of that?

Collins, Monica P. [9:25 AM]:

Actually, what will happen is this:

Go down to 2 ipods, with following: videos; fav albums; white noise; playlists.

I will then copy as much as I can to the 1TB Passport.  The rest will get copied later this year when I purchase a 2nd one.

Being that I will be down to two pods, I can go back to carrying the music one in my purse again.

[9:27 AM] The conversation has been marked with high importance.

Collins, Monica P. [9:29 AM]:

(somehow, I keep hitting some key combination that turns on high importance.)

Lacy, Robert P. [9:30 AM]:

lolk

Collins, Monica P. [9:30 AM]:

Anytime that I want to listen to something not already on the iPod, I can plug the Passport into this PC.

now what's so funny?

you mean the high importance?

I have no idea how I've done it.  It's the second time in two days lol.

Lacy, Robert P. [9:33 AM]:

hmm

Collins, Monica P. [9:53 AM]:

did you only answer the one email?

Collins, Monica P. [9:55 AM]:

still sleepy?

Lacy, Robert P. [9:56 AM]:

always

Collins, Monica P. [10:01 AM]:

Oh, should I run my converting the shop.aafes.com mobile app with Scott before or after I do it?

Lacy, Robert P. [10:03 AM]:

after

suprise

Collins, Monica P. [10:04 AM]:

Yeah, I figured you'd say that.  That usually has a way of backfiring, but I guess that I'll have to muddle through somehow.

Last Week

* I've got my goals set for next year. I might actually have a chance of accomplishing them. I really need to, since receiving a promotions seems to be the only way that I'm going to get a raise, since I'm at the top of my tier right now.

Monitoring My Time Last Week

Last week, I was not good at all with recording my tags in ManicTime. This morning, I had to finish tagging just about every day last week, because I did not do it on those days. Last week was a bit hectic and I kept skipping it. Between that and skipping because I know that I have not done enough within a given hour, I do myself in.

FW: Question

 

 

Thanks ….

 

Monica Collins

Appl Sys Prog Analyst I

Information Technology Directorate

Army & Air Force Exchange Service

214-312-2353 

collinsm@aafes.com

Visit our online store! www.shopmyexchange.com

 

 

From: Collins, Monica P.
Sent: Friday, July 29, 2011 2:30 PM
To: Bradford, Mickey L.
Cc: Collins, Monica P.
Subject: RE: Question

 

Ok, the attached jpg is a screen shot of my desktop.  3.5 monitors. 

 

·         Outlook: Since it's not really condusive for us in IT to keep Outlook closed, like numerous time management tout that you should, I keep it open on my left-hand screen. 

·         ClearContext: I have an add-in called ClearContext within Outlook, which I use to help organize incoming tasks and projects. 

·         Win-Organizer: I store my working projects in this.  Although this application has a lot of good features, the item that sold me was the ability to create any number of alarms on each subtask within a given task.  I originally started out keeping all of my project info in Outlook tasks, however the fact that I could only create one alarm within it, or set up numerous calendar events, was a major drawback to me.  As I have worked with Win-Organizer, I have created templates for myself for given project or task types, to assure that steps are not missed.

·         Chrome: I have set up Google Chrome as my alternate IE browser.  I still have to use Microsoft IE for AAFES-related pages, because Chrome can't render all of the data properly.  I installed Chrome for an add-in called StayFocused that I came across a couple of months ago.  I have checked in the past and I have found no way to be able to block certain sites.  I have been wanting to do this for some time to avoid surfing and getting sidetracked.  I had tried another app some time ago, but was unable to continue using it.

·         ManicTime: This tracks what I do on my PC (see attached PNGs).  This has been great because within any given day, I move back and forth between items so much that I find it hard to track just what exactly I have done.  I installed this a few years ago when we had to be more detailed in the time we reported.  I now go and create tags every hour so that I don't have to try and remember at the end of the day what I was doing where.

·         3M Digital Post-Its: I use these post-its because I am able to add an alarm to them.  I also currently keep the information written on my white boards on them, so that they are in front of me. 

·         TimeLeft: This app has reminders, notes (they don't have alarms so I only use this version of notes for a couple of things), clocks and stopwatches.  I have various reminders set up throughout the day, such as when to switch to a different type of project, etc.  Within each of those, I am also able to set numerous alarms, such as at different times of the day for a specific thing.

 

 

 

Thanks ….

 

Monica Collins

Appl Sys Prog Analyst I

Information Technology Directorate

Army & Air Force Exchange Service

214-312-2353 

collinsm@aafes.com

Visit our online store! www.shopmyexchange.com

 

 

From: Bradford, Mickey L.
Sent: Wednesday, July 27, 2011 1:15 PM
To: Collins, Monica P.
Subject: Re: Question

 

Yes please.

Thanks,
Mickey Bradford



---------------------------------
Sent from AAFES Blackberry Server
 

From: Collins, Monica P.
Sent: Tuesday, July 26, 2011 11:07 AM
To: Bradford, Mickey L.
Subject: Question
 

Would you be interested in knowing the software/methods that I currently using to keep my tasks on track?

 

Thanks ….

 

Monica Collins

Appl Sys Prog Analyst I

Information Technology Directorate

Army & Air Force Exchange Service

214-312-2353 

collinsm@aafes.com

Visit our online store! www.shopmyexchange.com