For those who have had meetings with me over the past week or so, I am sorry I was sick. Not anything serious, but even a cold can have bad affects on a product development project. I’ll share a few tricks that kept me going and have put me in a great position to catch up easily without skipping a beat.
When I was sick, seeing the long list of e-mails in the morning pertaining to projects seemed like an insurmountable task. My immediate replies where not as clear as general and when the communication starts to break down, projects break down. So I used the classic writing task of drafting, going through all of my replies and then revisiting adding information being more willing to over inform than usual.
My calendar which is usually very fluid to accommodate quick client calls quickly became filled with reminders to do follow-ups. I used Google Calendar that even sent me a text message to my phone which will helped me stay on top. Besides using the calendar tools I also relied on my notebook like a crutch to reflect on phone calls.Usually these items stay in my notebook and in the front of my brain, but when my memory got foggy I used tools to help.
No matter how hard I tried, my productivity was seriously depleted. At one point I thought I would just work through it, but I ended up probably extending my sickness for a few days. Once I accepted that my productivity was down, i started really building relatively long to do lists. Sure I didn’t like that items were piling up, but that meant nothing was falling through the cracks.
You might be asking: What makes product development so different than other occupations when you are sick? The answer is that there are a lot of different things going on with different consultants on different projects. So even if you are taking more of a hobby approach to your invention, you don’t want to let anything important to be confused, lost or forgotten. I hope these tips help.
What has helped you?
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