17 moments of IT. Personal experience of self-organization from the head of the department

Why 17, you ask? Because my path to IT began exactly 17 years ago. At the same time, I have been working at Jet Infosystems for the last decade, where my professional development took place. But today I’ll tell you not about the ups and downs of corporate life, but about self-education and literature, which has helped me all these years.

The first need for conscious self-organization arose when I was still working as a business analyst in the early tenths. At some point, I had a very large number of tasks, and I turned for advice to a colleague who always went with a diary. In response, he offered me a book on time management. So I met in 2012 with the book of Gleb Arkhangelsk "Time Drive". Gleb describes in sufficient detail how to manage time, and offers his own system of time management and planning. I first read from him about the "frogs" that you need to "eat" in the morning. He (or perhaps someone before him) called tasks that are unpleasant to you, but having done one such task in the morning and then realizing that you no longer have such tasks, you will experience incredible pleasure. He told me that "you must eat the elephant in pieces": that is, if you have a huge task, you need to cut it into pieces and "eat it with steaks." So on my desk appeared paper diaries (not to be confused with notebooks, they were always there now), and there were notes in them.

In 2014, a very active development began, there was a lot of work, the company rushed like a rocket. When I had rummages, I still used methods that I somehow remembered – “frogs”, “elephants”, writing tasks on paper. Once, my colleague Vitaly suggested that I set aside one day to stay at work and rake everything that I have. I don’t know if he read books, but intuitively he applied one move, which I have already seen in several books: this is a “weekly review”. Or, for example, my wife constantly keeps an electronic list of her tasks on the iPhone, and she doesn’t forget anything (unfortunately = (). Maintaining such lists is another popular (key) method.

In 2015, I had to help my colleagues for some time – I had to test the functionality and sit on the side of the customer. The range of responsibilities has grown: I tested, analyzed errors, coordinated several teams, decided where which errors went, kept all kinds of registries for those, for these guys over there. In February 2016, my colleague went on a long vacation, and I was offered to take the position of coordinator between the two divisions of the company. I agreed and thereby doomed myself to the search for new opportunities for self-organization.

I still kept my paper diaries (and notepads), but began to come to the conclusion that I needed some other electronic tool. The choice fell on EverNote. There, everything is almost the same as in paper form, only it is easier to search for information, and it is available from many devices. When EverNote became paid for all platforms, I switched to OneNote, which still lives with me – exclusively as a substitute for recording paper, plus to store reference information, which I constantly use. Its main advantages are that it is cross-platform, free and synchronizes well, despite the fact that it is a Microsoft product. And he is also cloudy.

In 2017, I began to learn to clearly explain my thoughts with the help of visual tools – I learned not only how to draw, but how much I filled my hand. I drew pictures about my plan for the day – it works well, and it's funny.

In 2018, there were catastrophically many tasks (a group appeared under the leadership). I again turned to friends for advice, and my colleague from Jet Infosystem, Masha, advised me of a cool book – Jedi Techniques by Max Dorofeev. In fact, like Gleb Arkhangelsky, Max Dorofeev offers his own system for managing time, himself, and his tasks. Max first told me that in fact I am in great stress from the fact that I keep all the tasks in my head (despite the presence of notebooks, diaries and other things). He offers simple techniques for unloading himself, for example, “Night Nail Clipper” – when you go to bed, instead of falling asleep normally, you begin to remember: “Oh, I forgot to do this!” He suggests spending five minutes to sit down and scroll through the whole your day backwards. At the moment of this scrolling, you will remember what you wanted to do and did not write down. I remembered – write in your system of self-organization, where you conduct tasks, or simply on a piece of paper. And so you have to go to the very end of the day. It really helps (try it, don't be lazy).

In addition, the author highlights the problem of procrastination: he suggests creating tasks in the form of the very first steps that need to be taken, and as simple and clear as possible. The author also explains the tasks in a clever way: for each task it is necessary to answer the questions “what?” what for? why? when? how much? ”and most importantly – to formulate the first physical action that must be done to achieve the goal (task, project). He talks about why we are lazy, as well as about the characteristics of motivation, and gives many useful tips on concentration. One of the tips that I applied is to mark all incoming messages in the mail as read so that they do not distract you, but to read them at the moment you need it. Previously, new letters constantly pulled me off of the tasks that I worked on. On Max’s advice, I turned off all notifications, and it was scary! I had to force myself. I told myself: “Roma, if something really happens, they will first send you an SMS, and in a more serious situation they will call you.” I really felt the difference: it removed the first wave of stress from me. Further, he began to apply other practices that helped free the brain to think about life at a higher level of perception. But, the path to "enlightenment" I have yet to.

In addition to the books already listed, I can recommend the books: “Never”, “Lifehack for every day”, “How to put things in order” and “Unfuck yourself. Dance less, live more. " They clarify some particular questions and support personal motivation.
Recently, I have learned to cope with a stream of tasks, although they are not becoming smaller, but I still feel the need for further development.