Mini Time Bursts

I'm sitting here looking at a pile of things that need to be done.  I can't do all of them.  The weight of all this stuff is crushing me.  I've got a free evening, shall I devote it to clearing my backlog?

I am going to try something radical.  I'm going to set a timer for 2 minutes, and spend 2 minutes of every job I have to do.

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Well I have just worked the way I've described for 2 hours, one before and one after dinner. 

The results were a bit mixed. I spent quite a few 2 minute sessions getting very little done of any significance.  But there were as many where I dug out stuff I had been resisting simply because I wasn't sure what to do with them, and even 2 minutes was enough to achieve some clarity.

But for a review of where I am with my workload, it was pretty good.  It also worked well in that I sneaked in a few long term things that I want to work on but which are sitting waiting for time to become available.

The biggest surprise was that I found the process quite energising.  I put in a couple of tidy up sessions, so my desk looks clearer.  It was also a positive experience to touch jobs, even briefly, that are weighing on my mind and getting older.

I think I will try it with 3 minute sessions.  Also, it only really works if you have two screens and enough memory to keep lots of tabs open so you can switch between jobs really quickly.  It might be worth thinking about what jobs lend themselves to this approach and which ones don't.

But as a tactic for getting things done, it was surprising that it worked at all let alone that it worked well.  It is certainly not as effective as intense concentrated work.  But you can't do that all day.  Indeed I don't think I can do it for more than about 3.5 hours at the absolute most and then only when I can be sure to be free of interruptions.  I could imagine that doing an hour long session of this every day - maybe a couple of them - might be a good way of using time where you would otherwise get very little done.  I am thinking of late afternoon, or just after lunch when I struggle to get focused.