I’ve learnt many things this term, and clearly there’s a lot left.

One of the things I’ve wanted to get better at (and still need some work on) is time management. At the time of writing, we’re still working on our layouts for Portfolio Brief Three, just about twelve hours before deadline.

The problem is, we h​ave​planned. Last time we felt like things were a bit rushed, so for this brief we decided to plan things down to the day with cutoff times for various milestones. However, we forgot to plan for the possibility that plans change. This time it wasn’t anything major, just a bunch of smaller delays – side projects, additional briefs, digressions, compelling feedback – that ate up our security time bit by bit.

False deadlines are something I’ve tried to do away with, because there’s a clear flaw in that I’m ‘outing’ the deadline as false when I’m the one making it for myself. If I rename it a ‘buffer,’ in addition to planning carefully, it might help avoid this situation next term. From here on out, all plans I make for completing briefs will have at least one buffer day, so there’s a slightly lower chance of this happening again.

Happy Holidays!

PS: I’m aware of the irony in writing a scab on time management twenty minutes before it’s due, but ho hey.