Series: Getting things done #
Probably not too unusual for people working on free software mostly (though no longer exclusively) in their spare time,
the number of items that appear in my private calendar have increased steadily in the past months and
years:
- Every three months I am organising the Apache Hadoop Get Together in Berlin.
- I have been
asked (and accepted the offer) to publish articles on Hadoop and Lucene in magazines.
- There are various
conferences I attend - either as speaker or simply as participant: FOSDEM, Froscon, Apache Con NA, Devoxx, Chemnitzer
Linuxtag - to name just a few.
- For Berlin Buzzwords I did get quite a bit of time for organisation, still some
issues leaked over to what others would call free time.
- I am mentoring one of Mahout’s GSoC students which is a
lot of fun.
- At least I try to spend as much time as possible on the Mahout mailing lists keeping up with what is
developed and discussed there.
There are various techniques to cope with increased work load and still find enough time to relax. Some of them involve simply remembering what to do at the right time, some involve prioritization, others deal with measuring and planning what to do. In this tiny series I’ll explain the techniques I employ - or at least try to - in the hope of getting your feedback, and comments on how to improve the system. After all, the most important task is to constantly improve ones own processes.