No longer am I a programmer. Wait, let me back up… I am a programmer but my task list is about 60/40 now. 60% of the time I’m doing non-programming tasks like project management, consulting, client interaction and planning. Oh shit, I woke up one day and became a CEO who actually spends most of his time being a CEO. Now, when my partner left I was doing mostly programming still because my partner couldn’t take on that many projects. But since figuring out the best source of labor and expanding my business network I have been able to delegate most of the programming to the programmers, manage the projects and plan for the budgets. Mostly, I’m a one man show. No employees except my receptionist and myself. All contractors besides that. I’m very satisfied with that arrangement. Contractors are more service minded than salaried employees in my opinion.
I’m actually talking to the owner of another company about helping run their company out of their current slump. It’s a web development firm here in Nashville that’s been around since the late 90’s. It’s just been run poorly for that long. I’m actually surprised they have the quality of the client base they currently have with the amount of problems they have but nonetheless it’s a great opportunity and I’d love to turn things around for them. So, I may be taking on that massive task.
Since I have gotten more busy I’ve learned that keeping weekly list of tasks is not enough. Marking off tasks one a day is too slow and just not motivational enough. So, now I keep a daily list of tasks as well as a weekly list of tasks. I mark off tasks as I get done with them and it helps motivate me to move quickly through the day. Then, if I have time at the end of the task list I may knock a couple off the next day’s list or take the rest of the day off. One of the cool tools I’ve been using for task management is a todo list at http://www.toodledo.com. It allows you to set long, medium and short term goals. It also allows you to organize tasks in a categorized fashion. It’s just a great tool. It integrates with google calendar as well.
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