Posted: November 22, 2020 | by Joachim Haller (Red Hat Accelerator, Sudoer)
When I was working in Bangkok, my time management tool of choice was the sun. I rode my motorbike to work and needed to get there before it got too hot and I showed up to work drenched in sweat, which I figured would not be appreciated by my colleagues. At the end of the day, I knew that the sun would set at 6:00pm sharp and, being terrified of riding my motorbike in the dark, I had to be home before that. This also had me home in time for dinner, which provided a healthy work-life balance. The choice of motorbiking to work was an easy one because the traffic in Bangkok was almost always heavily congested, and rush hour was, of course, the worst time possible to try to get from point A to point B. The journey to work would take an hour and a half by car but only 35 minutes by motorbike. The bike ride was also a perfect way to disconnect from work because I had to concentrate completely on navigating the heavy car and bus traffic on the roads.
At work, I have used the strategy of day-planning in combination with project management. So, at the beginning of each day, I pick some items that I want to have done before I leave. Normally I sketch out one week at a time and let the events during that week be pretty fluid. However, the activities are always part of a much bigger plan that I have loosely formulated in my mind of what I want to achieve over the next three to six months. Because I have a weekly plan and also a bigger picture of what I want to do, I don’t have to get upset or stressed if I can not complete a task on a particular day; it can be moved to another day and I will still be able to reach the overall target.
This way of working suits me well because it allows me to interact with people, catch technical things on the fly, temporarily become involved in something, and still move forward according to my plans. For many years, I have worked with support and technical projects and have evolved this way of working in order to avoid stress and maintain a healthy work-life balance.
Another important aspect for me is to always “go to the office,” meaning I get dressed every morning and prepare for office even if I’m working from home. This also helps me draw a line between work and private life.
Those are my general strategies, but when it comes to tools, there is one that I rely on to manage my life more than any other, and that is the calendar on my mobile. Be it the old school paper-based day planner or Google/Apple/Microsoft, there is always a collated calendar with work and life in a great big blend that outlines every hour of every working day and pokes me for events, meetings, anniversaries, birthdays, etc. It is the tool that pulls my puppet strings; I actually have to challenge myself to ignore it, to know when to close it, and do something else and put more priority on my family.
https://www.redhat.com/sysadmin/time-management-tools