How Many Can You Handle?

Ideal work load....
3 Projects, the one you are actually working on, the background 'coffee time' thinking project and the third one you are waiting for the bits to be delivered.

In my case.
1. Making bow
2. Solar hot water improvements.
3. Super Tillering rig for bow making...awaiting delivery of 600lb hand winch

Notwithstanding the 'to do list' from Mrs Cat (shhhh, you ain't seen me ...right?)

Del

First ask yourself what will happen with this problem if I do nothing. Sometimes doing nothing is the best decision.

Do hard jobs early and late in the day. Use the mid day for meetings and sign off approvals while in the meetings so to have the person seeking approval infront of you when you approve the funds.

Delegate work !

This mostly depends on your personal attention span... If more than six at a time apopeals to you, look into any aspect of the Oil Fied maintenance.

1- 2009 Maintenance Plan

2- Prospective longterm contract equipment modification

3- Equipment entering your aea Mobilization/De-Mobilization

4- Current overhauls in progress.

5- Failure Analysts

6- Logistics for ALL THE ABOVE

Lets not forget the occasional "friend" that pops his head in just to say hi, and completly scramble your train of thought....REAL LIFE SCENARIO, every day all day.

As many as I'm familiar with. If the projects are repetitive or simple then many can be given priorities and scheduled and delegated. As they become more complex and or unknown they take more time to assess, manage and document. Training can also have a time issue for the new and or changes.

As for Style: List; Prioritize; Discern needs and Resources; Plan/brainstorm and eat the elephant one bite at a time; document( during step by step). This is an on going process where new items are added and completed then filed, new steps are added, moved or revised as needed.

I hate the document part in the short term, but in the long run it will pay off- if done right.

Production coordinator for 2 years and when TRW bought us out it took 3 people to replace me. I wasn't always a team player because the team was a committee and I had yet to become more tactful.

A systematic approach to success.

Brad

Geeeeeh... We'll have to be like a 'Rocket Engineers' otherwise. Not easy stuff these days out there too tuff to bring some beacon lately, I don't Know!

I do believe that part of the troubles from overwork is that as far as there are some 'superstars' to do 3 people's jobs at once then the unemployment ghost will stay alive forever. You know the treathen or trick or treat... Now with even more mass production in place (Robots) and automation systems forget it. Not easy cookie for the 'Common Joes' out there looking for a living.

Anyhow everything is relative I will agree. Just hang in there and not rush into nothing yet.

Crank that Puppy-Up,

MC

seeing while eating.

the more projects, the more better.

In my work multi tasking is a must. If we couldn't, then our customers would suffer in the long run. I find that there are a lot out there that stretch out a job and make it look more complicated than it is. This forces others to multi task to keep the company on track. The bad part about it is that management allows these people to do this. I was told one time by my supervisor that I needed to pick up more of the work load. He said this is "Team Work". Ha... I told him that "Team work" should not involve picking up the slack of other individuals.

Multi tasking is a trait of individuals driven to succeed for both themselves and their company.

I think of multitasking as short bursts of linear-tasking. You have to be able to do something by reflex to do something else at the same time. So most work is "this task" then "that task" then "next task". The planning/ organizing of these "tasks" is multitasking most of the time.

Brad

I don't typically like to have more then 1 active project on the go, but I do like to have other things to move on to if I need a change of pace or come to an impasse.

The very nature of my position requires me to multitask though as I am at times responsible for supervisory/training of employees, the QA of our product and for the final testing and approval of machines leaving our facility.

I find I can multitask but if I have more then one active project I can actually get less done and it increases potential for error. When multitasking though I always get to a point in the project where I can drop it and pick up with it later knowing exactly where I left off.

One thing I tend to do is prioritize on a daily basis. I come in sit down and see what new in the In basket. I issue whatever I can immediately and then file the rest by due dates. If I can make use of an existing design I will take a couple hours to revise that design instead of doing a complete new design that may be ahead of it chronologically. It's worked for me.

I have had this work well for me... I actually got this position in part because of it. When I was being interviewed for this position I was asked to take a few aptitude tests. When taking them I just answered everything that I knew the answers to or that were simple to figure out and left the more complex questions to the end. By doing this I impressed the interviewer with my ability to get the vast majority of the test completed in the time allotted and increased my percentage because I did what I knew before struggling with things I didn't know.