11/11: a year in MVPs, the great white, and an anti-langolier weapon
It’s not too late to try a new approach to 2016
Break your year into MVPs
There are two things that annoy me the most: the lack of tangible achievements and the foreseeability of, well, foreseeable future. Right after I set a long-term goal, my imagination does what it excels at: lives up the whole journey towards the goal, and imminently deprives me of any enthusiasm to achieve it in real life.
To trick the beast, I came up with the “MVP year” idea:
- every 1–2 month (1 is better) is an MVP; so no planning further than the mentionned period. Picture what can you achieve within a month that would make you happy and proud of yourself — that’s your project. Mine, for example, was translating a short story I wrote from Russian into English — and yes, by the end of January I had my translation!
- only set goals that can be achieved within the set period; if you’re working on a large project, break it into smaller parts that fit;
- no overnight blitz-kriegs: if you can’t make it to the deadline with a task, you reassign it to the next month;
- leave enough room in your schedule for occasional SNAFUs or freelancing. Don’t be afraid — there will be no excess of free time.
Don’t forget to review your month at the end of it, celebrate what you have achieved and adjust your plans accordingly.
The great white
I found a tool to make my thoughts materialise, and no productivity app can compete with it. I’m talking about the big whiteboard hanging in my room:
I think it works because, unlike a planning app or my favourite Notes, it doesn’t disappear right after I close my laptop or switch off my smartphone. Everything I put on the whiteboard becomes a material part of my life, as tangible as a spoon or a couch (I said tangible, not lyingdownable). Working with the board really clears my head in the process, and then all those tasks have much higher complete rate. Enough said, I’m going to buy one more board.
Do not feed the langoliers
Imagine you’re waiting for someone who’s running late, and you don’t want to read a book in the meanwhile, because they might show up anytime, and checking your social media isn’t something you will thank yourself for, and there are langoliers on the horison eager to swallow this short, but nonetheless precious time. To defeat them, I use green colour to mark the micro-tasks on my list (in my case, it’s Trello) — the smallest ones, that I can surely complete anytime, literally in minutes. Eat this, bastards!
This publication is the English digest of 11/11, my monthly newsletter (in Russian).
