I hadn’t originally planned on making these additional tweaks, but all the excellent feedback had me revisiting the time boxing to take different schedules into account.

The original restriction behind timeboxes is from an older form, Menu of the Day. It was specifically designed to force myself to plan in boxes of time so I could maintain a “regular” schedule. This concept of boxes is also key in The Resource Tracker/Scheduler: once you can chunk tasks into standard sizes, it’s easier to “pack” days looking forward without screwing yourself.

Although this past timebox work was the foundation of the ETP, I’ve slowly come to realize that it is a separate product. This comment from Jason Langenauer is the one that broke the mental logjam (emphasis mine):

[…] Also, as I start at 7am, the lunch “breaks” in the day planner don’t align to any real break in my day – I just mark in a half-hour block when I take my lunch. I’d say almost certainly remove them, as people’s lunch times and lengths will vary, but I think they also provide a useful visual cue to find yourself in the day. Without them, it’d be difficult to immediately go to a certain time.

DESIGN ADJUSTMENTS

What I liked about Jason’s comment was the insight that yes, people’s breaks tend to vary (a point made by many others), but the additional insight was that the timebox design makes it easy to see where in the day you were. This was not something I had considered specifically in the original design, but it came along for free because lunch and dinner create temporal landmarks in the day, creating natural boundaries between “morning work” and “afternoon work”.

Taking these two observations into account, I’ve made the following adjustments:

• Single customizable AB strip. You can use the C, D, and E bubbles for those shorter tasks as before, but for longer tasks use the AB strip. Not only does this give us a bit more writing space, but it finally frees the ETP from the tyranny of starting tasks at a certain time. That was my original intent, but for a general-purpose planner sheet it’s more appropriate to lift that restriction. For more structured environments (9-5 workplaces, schools), I can develop different forms.

• Changed terminology for breaks: Several people pointed out that they take breaks at different times. Keeping Jason’s comment in mind, I left the “break” times colored orange, but marked them as midday and evening instead. Now they’re markers, not commands to eat or take a break. The implication is that you’re probably going to eat during those times, but now it’s up to you when you want to do it, and for how long.

CURRENT PROGRESS

I have yet to call printers and fulfillment houses, and I’m behind on several other personal goals from my Groundhog Day Resolutions. However, as this project is one of those goals, I don’t feel I’m doing too bad because progress is being made. I’ve also gotten some interesting contacts from a couple manufacturers of notebooks and pre-printed “Post-It” pads.

• A company called Myndology contacted me to let me know that they license the Atoma Binding System from Belgium, which is apparently the original licensor for Circa and Rollabind notebooks! Myndology also make some really cool flashcard products held together with rings…drool! They are sending me some samples in the mail, so more reports as events warrant. It would be awesome to have a Atoma-based planner system :-)

• A promotions company called Adlib Advertising showed me their printing on “Post-It” pads. There’s some interesting things like this executive set, which might be interesting for some kind of single-task based system, but I’m going to have to think about it. I could see this being useful for another kind of scheduler-based system. In the meantime, I’m just mulling over the possibilities.

BUSY BUSY

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p>The next ten days will be very busy for me as I close out several billable projects, so I’ll not be posting very much until after Memorial Day (May 29th).

Have a great week!

While I knew that creating my own product was well within my grasp, I’m finding that walking the path is a lot different than just dreaming about it. I think the reason is this: when you’re on the path, you can actually see what’s coming at you. When you’re not on the path, the opportunities and pitfalls that you imagine are really just abstractions or undefined fears. Getting on the path—and that really means doing something and being accountable for the results—is much more interesting.

I got my first real taste of this while going through all the great comments from yesterday’s post. I’ve worked on projects before that have been seen by lots of people, but generally the work has been in areas where I was already technically competent. Creating my own product is a bit different, and it’s rather exhilarating to be a noob again. The reason it’s exciting rather than merely terrifying is because I’ve learned to embrace newness as something that’s unlikely to actually kill me, so why not? Also, yesterday I got a fortune cookie that said this: When you understand, you are not learning. Wow!

But I digress…I’m pretty jazzed about the adjustments I’ve made to my developing product strategy. Read onward!

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