Comments on: Getting ahead of the game

By: Saturday Seven Inspiration for Quilters 80 | A Quilting Life

Saturday Seven Inspiration for Quilters 80 | A Quilting Life — Sat, 08 Jun 2019 10:31:27 +0000

[…] I like being ahead of the calendar and deadlines…but it doesn’t always work out that way for me. So I love finding tips to help me keep from procrastinating. I recently finished up a project about a week early because I had put the deadline a week early in my calendar. As I got near completion of the project I was so happy I had used that trick to help me stay ahead of the game. Read a fun blog post on this subject here. […]

By: Laura Vanderkam

Laura Vanderkam — Fri, 07 Jun 2019 11:32:24 +0000

In reply to V.

@V – awesome! Thanks so much. I’m doing my best 🙂

By: V

Thu, 06 Jun 2019 18:14:04 +0000

Just a quick note to say that your voice sounds great on Before Breakfast!

By: Holly

Holly — Thu, 06 Jun 2019 00:50:19 +0000

In reply to Anu.

Have you checked out any of the workflow automation apps? I personally use Zapier (I don’t work for them), but there are others—If This Then That is another one that I know of, but I’m confident there are more. Anyway, I use it to streamline my workflow so I have more time for all the many things that CAN’T be automated. I’ve got things like Slack and Google Sheets and Squarespace and Mailchimp connected, but you can connect just about anything with those automation apps. Does take some time to set up though. But the payoff when I get my spreadsheets updated with new data without having to lift a finger… ahhhhh. 😉

By: Dominique

Dominique — Wed, 05 Jun 2019 20:39:26 +0000

This is a comment on your Before Breakfast podcast for today – Anything from my work calendar that is outside of normal work hours, gets forwarded to my personal electronic calendar so it appears on both. I do it the other way around as well. Also, Outlook as a feature where you can mark an appointment private and then only you can see the details.

By: Anu

Anu — Wed, 05 Jun 2019 18:24:32 +0000

In reply to Holly.

Ha, I’m reading this at work where I just spent time saving two csv files a colleague sent me in the correct folder and then uploading them into R. So very relevant and yes, I should think about how to streamline that stuff, though it’s the kind of thing I don’t particularly enjoy – I want to make progress, not organize stuff.

By: Holly

Holly — Wed, 05 Jun 2019 15:29:07 +0000

One thing I’ve found is that friction costs me more than I realize. (I think. I’m pretty sure.) So when accomplishing X is unnecessarily painful—e.g. having to wade through three screens just to log time on an activity or downloading a csv file just to reformat and upload it somewhere else—the pain matters. It drags at me, and then I’m coming at my work with less gusto. Which tends to slow me down, and not in a thoughtful, “I’m taking the time to really be mindful about this task” way. And if I’ll just devote whatever time it takes to de-frictionize my workflow… I don’t know; it’s not that I’m getting ahead, strictly speaking, but I’m certainly smoothing the path.

Thanks for the thought-provoking read!