Perceived vs Actual Freedom The problem we’re all wresting with can be stated in many ways… “I’m too busy” “I don’t have time” “I’m making commitments I can’t keep” …but another way to think about the problem may be the difference between our “perceived” freedom and our actual freedom. That is, we perceive—we believe—that we […]
Time
Jeff Atwood
Like a crazy hoarder, I mistake the root cause of my growing mountain of incomplete work. The hoarder thinks he has a storage problem when he really has a ‘throwing things away problem’. I say I am ‘time poor’ as if the problem is that poor me is given only 24 hours in a day. […]
Schedules and Perfectionism
Schedules suck. Each time we make a software development schedule, we do so despite two glaring problems: 1. It’s really tough to estimate or forecast any substantial development project. (That’s the long version of “schedules are useless”.) Looking at any large successful software project in hindsight your estimates and schedules appear naive if not ridiculous 2. We […]
Time Scales, Kaizen, and Urgency
Doing some financial planning a few months ago, I was thinking about how to budget for all the stuff we’re trying to get done next year–remodeling on the house, some travel, finishing the van/mobile-office/surf wagon–and I just couldn’t get the numbers to come out right. I had this spreadsheet showing how much we’d have available […]
Decisions
Reminded today that deciding to do one thing is deciding not to do something else–that the root of the word “decide” is to “cut off”. As a small business, the opportunity costs for even your best decisions are huge: the best gig you’ve got is another customer you didn’t meet. The opportunity costs for bad […]