Slowing Down – What Am I Doing?

What am I doing? That was one of the first questions that came up when I started on this quest to slow down.  One of the triggers that got me (re)started down this path was taking a peek at Leo Babauta’s sites mnmlist  and Zen Habits. In particular I ended up reading What Am I Doing Now?.  The best part was this:

That’s how you do it..

The page lists his priorities and he is apparently sticking to it.

So, for this to work for me, I thought I’d look to what I do best (Project Management, business analysis, etc) and come up with a plan to (re)start my most important project – my life. Projects have life cycles.  I work in software, which doesn’t quite feel like life, but I bet with some adjustments, everything will turn out fine (stop me if I start talking about putting myself through a compiler).

A Better Mousetrap

Here’s the steps to build good software.  Hopefully it translates to the project of life:

Gather Requirements – everything from software, to building a bookshelf, to writing a book should start with a list of things you want to accomplish. OK, you don’t have to start out this way, but I’ve found that if you don’t your project often fails.  Having the list helps to keep you focused on what your intention was and it also helps you measure whether or not you’re successful in the end.
Design – This can be a schematic, a schedule, a list of tools – whatever you think will get you to where you want to be.  Thinking about this stuff before you get to the workshop makes things go much faster.
Develop – This is the part where the rubber hits the road – partially.  You start putting the pieces together; making sure they fit.  Make sure you measure twice, cut once.
Test – People don’t always do this. But here’s where you start comparing what you’ve built with what you set out to build. Tragedy is often averted here.  Say you want to build a bookshelf to go into a tight closet.  You cut all the wood, and it suddenly occurs to you that if you put it together, it won’t fit in the closet.  Testing forces you to look back at your requirements and your design to see if they’ll actually work.  My advice – always test.
Deploy – OK actual sustained rubber on road happens here. Project launched, hurrah! Are we done? Oh no.
Maintenance – here’s where we all have challenges.  In this slowing down project, the irony is that if you do it right, you’ll have more time on your hands. Good right! Well… if you’re a busy body like me, not necessarily.  Here’s how things fall apart – Oh look more time!  I can do more stuff! Gah! We fall off the wagon. So part of maintenance is refreshing and revisiting the plan

So, What am I doing?

So first steps.

I’ve set up my list of what I’m doing now.
I start designing how I’m going to slow down and stay slowed down. More on that next time.

A short series on slowing down.  I'll be sharing some of the things I've been doing to pare my life down so I can focus on the things that I think are impoirtant.

Slowing Down - Be slow in choosing a friend, slower in changing.  - Benjamin Franklin

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The post Slowing Down – What Am I Doing? written by Andrew Furst appeared on Andrew Furst.