Getting to Done

I’m good at procastinating. About the only way I can complete something is to decide I’m going to complete something for real is work it out. These aspects work for me:
1) Figure out what the goal is. Mainly this is figuring out if I want this. If I don’t then I probably think about it because I think somebody else’s goal should be my own. Cutting out all the things I don’t actually don’t want (or need) to do clears the decks for what I do want to do. One tip: evaluate both how much accomplishing this thing would make me happy and how much failing would make me unhappy. [see Robertson and Robertson, Mastering the Requirements Process]
2) Break the work down into managable tasks. I’m easily overwhelmed.
3) Allot yourself time enough to do that task item, but don’t cheat. Kenneth Atchity [A Writer's Time] recommends that even if you’re going gangbusters, you do notwork beyond your budgeted time. In the back of your head you know you cheated and you’ll be less inclined to get cracking the next time.
4) Wear a task down step by step by step. Don’t expect to leap across to the end. This is basically the same as item two above, but I have to keep reminding myself.

None of this is original of course. I wanted to credit Robertson and Robertson and Atchity in particular. Just about everybody will tell you to whittle your work down step by step. Still, I have a hard time actually doing this. I’m just about to settle down to a task for a project and this entry is a way of procastinating a little more first…