Developing focus the “agile” way
There is a lot about the Agile project methodology way that I despise, but short term focus goals isn’t one of them.
First, I should probably introduce the agile methodology. In project management, there are multiple ways of handling how a project is run. The agile methodology focuses heavily on minor but often corrections to a project to help facilitate communication, reduce churn (when something has to be recoded due to requirement changes), and come up with more accurate short-term timelines and less focus on the long term. I won’t get into much more about the agile methodology, but the above should sum it up well.
The part I want to focus on is how this develops focus. When I was talking to my father yesterday, he asked why I am getting rid of stuff and buying less. I told this it had to do with focus. In my free time I’m interested in the following activities: martial arts, art (book binding, drawing and painting), music (playing and listening), reading, programming side projects, doing some work for work, watching some tv/movies, motorcycle riding, language study (writing blogs, learning new languages), and volunteer work. This doesn’t even take in account that I’m a graduate student and work full time. The reason I mention all this is to really illustrate the worst case of someone who has no focus and does too much.
The agile way comes to the rescue. I first had to realize that I want to become a master at some stuff and let other stuff fall back a little. To accomplish this, I am starting (actually did this in the past too) to pick a few things of my interests to focus on for one week. After the week, I want to spend a bit on Sunday morning in a mini retrospective to come up with ways of improving a bit.
To further sticking to the goals, it’s helpful to stick all the times one will do stuff on a calendar. Even when willpower is low, the calendar helps to keep things on track. It also reinforces the thought that being successful each day.
To give my week plans, I decided to focus on martial arts, language studies, and work reading/coding. My short term goal is to do this M-F with a retrospective on Sunday. If all goes well, I’d like to keep this focus a month. 3 hours each night dedicated to this isn’t much to ask.
I focused much of this writing as in what my plans were instead of the more generic what could be done because I feel this type of thing isn’t a known science and is adaptable by the individual. I would be very interested in hearing your opinions and ideas to improve this. Please use the comment area below.
