Time management

[RobStallion]

Test time management apps so I can learn to manage my time more effectively.

Desired outcomes

I would first like to be able to EASILY identify how much time I spend doing 'anything' in a given amount of time

How much time I spend cooking in a day, how much time I spend replying to issues in a working week, how much time I spend watching TV in a month, how much time I work on personal projects, etc...

Easily is KEY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! to this. I NEED to be able to do this with minimal effort. So little effort that I don't even think about it otherwise I won't want to do it.

My hope is that this will allow me to easily 'rank' the things I have done in an amount of time (day, week, month).

The reason I want to rank my tasks is so that I can focus on things that are more important.

There are things that are important, for example seeing friends, but I do not want to do that everyday for 5 hours a day. I also think personal 'unwinding' time is important (watching tv, playing ps etc...) but are these things taking up too much time and stopping me from doing other things I want to achieve, like BUILDING THIS APP?

Toggl

Going to use this app first and see what I think of it. Will capture my thoughts in this issue.

[RobStallion]

I don't think I like toggl 🙄

It's got some pretty annoying features (I'll list them a bit later)

But something it has already shown me is that I want to improve my speed when it comes to writing examples and readmes. I have been working on https://github.com/dwyl/learn-elixir/issues/105 and barely any of the code I wrote was something new to me.

There was actually only one line of code that I had to work out which was one in the travis yml...

before_install:
  - cd codecov_example

(technically 2 lines but who cares)

I estimated that this would take an hour (I thought it could take longer but I thought at most 2. I wanted an ambitious (for myself) goal).

It turns out it took about 3 hours and that is before any code review has been done on it. I am not sure yet if this is a problem with me estimating badly, me being too slow when it comes to writing, a combo of both or something else.

No matter what it's good that it has been highlighted

[RobStallion]

Just added another 18 minutes to this 1HOUR task 🙄

[RobStallion]

This also seems to have pointed out that I am a bit of a slow reader as I feel like I am spending quite a lot of time reading issues. If there were LOADS of issues then the time would be justified but I think I am just a touch on the slow side.

Not sure how to improve this though 😕

I may end up making this issue it's own repo because it looks like it may turn into a place where I track a lot of thoughts

[nelsonic]

@RobStallion trust me, I read "slower" than you. ⏳ But act of tracking the time a task/activity is taking is not the "enemy" (even if the UX is "meh!") Knowing that something is taking longer than you expected/estimated is a really good insight.

It gives you a chance to improve your focus on the task, define more realistic estimates and/or "break down" the task into smaller chunks (e.g with a checklist or sub-issues)

[RobStallion]

@nelsonic I am loving the fact that after 2.5 days of using this tool, it already seems to be helping me highlight things I can work and improve on.

I just need to figure out how to go about doing that.

I also need to get a better understanding of what skills I can improve (so I finish tasks in the time I estimated) and what is just bad estimating (so I can actually make a realistic estimation).

[nelsonic]

@RobStallion I discovered a few weeks back that I needed to improve my editing speed. 🐌 Hence: https://github.com/nelsonic/learn-vim 🚀

[RobStallion]

I WILL be following that repo closely. I don't feel like I am at a point in my coding (yet) where I am being "held back" by my editing speed but it never hurts to be faster 👍

Plus I just like vim 👍 👍

[nelsonic]

@RobStallion can you type (without errors) as fast as you can think? 🤔 https://youtu.be/8HPF9uPllt8

[RobStallion]

@nelsonic haha I wish. What I meant is if I am trying to solve an issue, almost always it's not my typing that is the "main hold up". It's the fact that I need to figure out what is the actual cause of the issue.

I do think that learning to use vim has improved my speed when it comes to coding things that are straightforward for me. But what I think has even more of an impact on my overall speed for "things I know how to do" are snippets. I have been trying to get into the habit of creating snippets for things I do over and over. For example, here are some of the snippets I have made for elixir in atom...

'.source.elixir':
  'IO.puts':
    'prefix': 'ip'
    'body': 'IO.puts(~s($1))'
  'Pipe IO.inspect':
    'prefix': 'iii'
    'body': '|> IO.inspect(label: "-----> $1")'
  'Function with args':
    'prefix': 'df'
    'body': 'def ${1:function_name}($2) do\n\t$0\nend'
  'Function with guard clause':
    'prefix': 'dfg'
    'body': 'def ${1:function_name}($2) when $3 do\n\t$0\nend'
  'Heredoc':
    'prefix': 'heredoc'
    'body': '"""\n$1\n"""'
  'Inline function with args':
    'prefix': 'idf'
    'body': 'def ${1:function_name}($2), do: $3'
  'Inline function with guard clause':
    'prefix': 'idfg'
    'body': 'def ${1:function_name}($2) when $3, do: $4'

I feel like no matter how fast I am at typing, I am never ever going to be as fast as the computer. Definitely doesn't mean I shouldn't get faster but I just want to also make to most out of what the computer is good at.

Vim for sure has it's place though. I find vim especially helpful for editing files and pretty much anything else that doesn't require a lot of "problem solving". It was also SUPER handy when I was working with the ukpostcodes.csv file.

[RobStallion]

@nelsonic

https://youtu.be/8HPF9uPllt8

That video was amazing. Not only is he blind but he is only 10. That is so good.

[RobStallion]

This is the worst

[nelsonic]

Yeah, couldn't agree more. #Nagware

Note: I'm guessing that from their cohort/abandonment analysis they have determined that if they don't "nag" people to "Upgrade", nobody does or people "drop off" because the "core" product isn't good enough to make people "effective"...?

Personally I cannot stand apps that "nag" me to do anything even if it's for my own benefit! Modals are evil horrible UX. Constantly forcing me to close something is infuriating. There are so many better user-messaging UI techniques ...!

[RobStallion]

I think I have decided that I don't like toggl. I have barely used it the last few days (can see exactly which days in the app) because it just doesn't make me want to come back to it.

I decided to download the desktop app to see if it would be a better experience. First things first, I think it is less clear than the site (which I'm shocked at tbh because I don't think that the site is very clear to begin with (I'm not talking about the metric pages, just the timer page)).

One big plus of the desktop app that I noticed though is that it can account for time that you were afk. So a little while ago I stopped working to help with a fac question but forgot to turn off my timer. When I came back to my computer, toggl desktop had a little pop up asking if I wanted to "remove" the period I was away for (I think it could tell when my laptop was locked).

This is a cool feature that will not be able to be reproduced in the browser (as far as I am aware anyway). That being said, it wouldn't be a feature that would be a winner for me anyway (I mean it wouldn't make or break me using the app).

[nelsonic]

Channel that frustration with Toggl into building a better way of tracking your effort. 😉

[RobStallion]

My favourite toggl feature by far... (enough to take me away from the desktop app back to the browser)

active

not

• Reminds me to actually use it because I see it(good step to have while I am trying to make this a habit)
• I can see at a glance how long I have been working on a task without even switching tabs.
• I can see if the timer is active or not (above images)

[nelsonic]

@robstallion worth adding this insight to the original issue. 😉

[nelsonic]

What was your conclusion on this? Did you move it to a more appropriate place (than “chess”)? (I only ask out of curiosity/learning...)

[RobStallion]

@nelsonic I don't think that I really came to much of a conclusion with this issue. I think I just closed it as Toggl had been frustrating me (which is a really really bad reason to close an issue. Especially when I think that the idea of tracking my time could be helpful going forward).

I am reopening this issue and will start tracking my time again so that I can actually try and come to some conclusions about this.

[nelsonic]

@RobStallion looking forward to reading your insights. 👍 I 100% agree that the Toggl UI/UX is frustrating (AF!) and we could do a much better job of it! 😉

[RobStallion]

I want a way of seeing if I have been working on / stuck on one part of a particular issue for too long.

Right now I think that this might be a "me" problem. For example, I am working on an issue that I have estimated will take 4 hours but some time into that issue I hit a bug that I didn't expect. I continue working on the issue trying to solve the bug and finish the issue. This eats into my time massively and before I know it I am over the estimated time. Not only this, but I do not know how long I have actually been on the bug for (specifically the bug, not the issue as a whole).

The reason I would like to know how long I have been on a bug for is so I can make a more informed decision on if I should move onto something else or not.

Capturing my thoughts for now. Will come back to this later in more detail

[nelsonic]

@RobStallion being "stuck" on something is not a "you" problem at all. What you are describing is two issues:

1. A task that is estimated at T4h is not sufficiently broken down and will almost always take longer. Unless the person is incredibly focussed they will (generally) not be able to work for 4h straight. This is not specific to you (Rob) but is applicable to everyone. Cal Newport manages around 5h of "Deep Work" per day but he breaks it down as much as he can to stay in the "flow state" for as long as possible. (I am guilty of doing estimating tasks as T1d ... however I feel that applying this label should automatically require the person to create sub-tasks to break down the work further ...)
2. Whenever you hit a bug or unforeseen hurdle/requirement it should always be noted down as a separate item on the Task list.

Look forward to reading your further insights on this. 👍