Procrastinators Anonymous is a fellowship of men and women who share their experience, strength and hope with each other that they may solve their common problem and help others to recover from chronic procrastination.

old job / new job

11 June, 2010 - 7:11am - ndb

I thought I'd make this a special project, because otherwise I think I'll be in trouble.

I'm going to change jobs by the end of this month. My new job is going to be sort of the same work, but with a focus more in my field of interest, and a less troublesome organization. I need to properly finish my ongoing projects, or at least properly transfer them to someone else. I'm working on that, but it's going slowly :-(. And yes, keeping a good relationship with my former colleagues is very important, if only because I'll be working with them regularly also in my new job, so dropping everything after June 30 is not an option.

Yesterday I realized I have only 10 workable days left, so I started counting how much there's left to do. My time estimate for the remaining work is 82.5 hours. I know from experience my time estimates are usually not that bad, so on the surface it looks like there's no problem.

BUT: I forgot to take into account all the hours that are already scheduled for meetings, so I have only 56 hours available, not 80 or 90 (not counting overtime), AND I'm a chronic procrastinator, so it's unlikely I'll be actually *working* all those hours :(.

That's why I've decided to post scores on my progress up to June 30, in this thread. And of course I hope you guys will cheer me on along the way :grin:. BTW, actually writing this down is a big motivation already, made me realize why this is important to me. It's not a question of some abstract "you have to do this properly", but it's actually "I want to do this properly, even though I hate some of the projects to be cleaned up."

Thanks to PA for this forum!!

Nicole

 

BTW: anybody working towards a deadline is welcome to join this thread and post their own mileposts.

‹ Week Goals huma and GSD's June Jump! ›

I made the deadline!

ndb - 29 Jun 2010 - 3:28pm

Wow, I did it. I finished everything that I had to finish before moving on to a new job. I managed to delegate a few tasks, and in one project I would have liked to have done a bit more than I actually did, but all in all I'm not unhappy with how I left.

Now imagine how much easier my life would have been these past few weeks if I hadn't procrastinated so terribly... 

ndb...

Lucky - 29 Jun 2010 - 4:50pm

Forget the 'buts' and the 'what ifs' and just...

deadline, June 25

ndb - 25 Jun 2010 - 3:05am

Things are going well! I was able to delegate a few commitments to colleagues, and some tasks turned out to be not as much work as I feared. So now I'm looking at 30 hours of work, with 3 workdays to do it in (minus a few appointments on Tuesday).

 Looks like I'm going to make it, phew!

approaching deadline, June 16

ndb - 16 Jun 2010 - 10:59am

I'm making progress, but slowly. Right now I'm looking at 55 hours of work, with 38 workable hours available till June 30. Still a backlog of 17 hours, but it's getting smaller!

I'm just in awe that you are

jennyfleur - 23 Jun 2010 - 12:31pm

I'm just in awe that you are able to come up with those numbers in the first place (hours of work and time available).  I'm wildly off whenever I try to guess the former, and I've never really thought abt guessing the latter, because as a student it always seems that time is somehow infinite - you can always just stay up an hour later or get up an hour earlier, etc.  Wow.  Maybe I will actually give this a try. Thank you, Nicole!  And good luck!  You can do it!  I have no doubt!

Thanks Jenny! Actually,

ndb - 24 Jun 2010 - 2:21am

Thanks Jenny! Actually, guessing time available is not that difficult, at least not for work-related tasks: 9 hours a day, minus all the appointments that are already scheduled. Problem is, of course, I don't actually *work* all those hours because I'm a chronic procrastinator :-( . But I know what you mean when you say time seems infinite, I do it also by thinking I can work late, or start early, or come back on my day off. In reality it never happens, but it's nice to think it's possible...

deadline, June 19

ndb - 19 Jun 2010 - 4:47pm

today's score: still 50 hours of work to do, with 36 available hours. I might have to drop one or two things to make it.

One remarkable thing: on some tasks my estimate is a bit high, and when I encounter those tasks on my list my reaction is "I don't need to do that yet, because that estimate is too high, I'll still have time later." :rolleyes: Is that procrastination or what?

Good job!

Crazybug - 16 Jun 2010 - 11:29am

Oh, ndb, good for you!  keep going!

Go ndb!!

Kitty - 14 Jun 2010 - 12:32pm

Congratulations on your new job!  I know how hard it is to motivate yourself to finish up something in the past when you are ready to start something new...but it is so great that you are making an orchestrated effort to finish up your outstanding projects before you leave.

Hang in there.  It seems that you are being very realistic in your assessment of the situation.  I'm finding that for me, it is often helpful to specify two different things on top of my estimate:  what is good enough, and what is ideal.  (The concept of "good enough" is a new one for me that I'm really working on.)

Keep moving forward!  We're rooting for you!

thanks Kitty

ndb - 14 Jun 2010 - 4:26pm

Thanks for your support, Kitty! And thanks for the reminder about good enough, that *is* going to help.

ndb approaching deadline, June 14

ndb - 14 Jun 2010 - 11:31am

I got a lot done today, so I made up a little bit of my backlog, but it's still a backlog. My score as of today: 

75.5 hours of work / 51.5 hours available to do it in

ndb job 11

ndb - 11 Jun 2010 - 7:13am

My starting score on June 11:

82.5 hours of work / 56.5 hours available to do it in