Fixpert

I’m learning how much time “circling back” wastes. This is a big lesson for me, and I hope thinking about it helps you too. At work, as we scope a project we begin to discuss different possible approaches. It seems that we often settle on getting something out there ASAP with the promise of “circling back” later to complete the work. I am in full support of rapid iterative development, but the circling back has to actually happen to make this work. And circling back…it rarely happens.

This phenomenon is so common at work that saying “circle back” has become a bit of a joke, often said sarcastically and accompanied by the in-the-air double finger quotes. The first step is acceptance and such, so just the fact that we’ve become aware of it is progress.

Joking about “circle back” at work made me realize how much I do it in my life outside of work. I noticed that it’s common for me to quickly check my email, read through any new messages in my inbox and make a mental note that I’ll circle back later and reply to them. That just means I have to read a message twice (or more).

Same thing with RSS feeds, I don’t have time to read every interesting article out there. I’ll use the Firefox extension SessionSaver and just have the same 3 or 4 articles opening in tabs every time I launch my browser for up to a week, but they never get read and they just add to my stress level sitting there taunting me in the background.

Time is so limited and therefore very precious to me right now, and I’m always juggling a ton of projects in and outside of work, and of course things always get more hectic around the holidays. I am going to try and make a point of not checking my email unless I have time to respond, then file away or delete the new messages. Same with RSS feeds, I won’t check them unless I have time to read them, and I won’t end up with a stack of Firefox tabs to wade through when there’s really no time for it.

(I also wanted to name this post “Do it! Do it now!!” which I think is originally from Predator, but correct me if I’m wrong.)

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 20th, 2005 at 11:44 am and is filed under Web Design. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.