The work of work

This week has been very busy for me, and most of what I have been doing has not directly been related to testing OneNote. 

For starters, I tried to install Wacom drivers to update my Lenovo tablet.  I went to the Wacom site to get the newest drivers and installed them.  They made no change, so I uninstalled them and decided to try again later.  That night, Windows Update noticed the uninstalled drivers and prompted me to apply an update.  I did, and now the tablet works!  I wish I had time for more details into what went wrong, but for now, I am just happy to get my tablet working.

Next, I realized I've been in Robinson Crusoe mode.  I have been reacting too much to day to day activities, and not been able to think about long term work items.  My first step here was to figure out where my time was going.  I chose not to use OneNote to track this, and went with Excel.  I tracked, to the nearest half hour, where my time was being spent.  I assigned all my day to day work to buckets, then (geeked out and) made a pivot table to track where the time went.  I was surprised at the time I was spending on the updates we've been releasing – it has been about 40% of my time, and was the single largest item on my agenda.  I need to work more efficiently here to help reclaim some time for long term planning.

My second biggest work item is hiring.  We still are, and we need to build a solid test team. 

Overall, these two work items are absolutely high priority and need to be completed.  My goal here, to be clear, is to reduce the amount of time spent on them and to keep the expected results.  The time I find can then be used for other work.

Then my Zune died.  The hard drive started clicking, it would not sync, and then would not boot.  Long out of warranty, so ordered a new one and spent a day getting it synced.  At least now I can listed to music in my office again.

Lastly, I'm waiting for my new Windows 7 phone to arrive.  I want to take my notes with me!

The work of being able to work has been my focus.  Everyone has these kind of things happen now and then, and I guess it's just my turn.

Questions, comments, concerns and criticisms always welcome,
John