The UX of Making Progress

I don’t think this applies to everyone, but it applies to me many times over.  When I feel like I can not make “progress” I get very stressed.  My mind doesn’t think as well, my body feels ill.  I generally have a short temper when I am in this state.  Progress is my minds digestion system.  It’s like being emotionally/intellectually constipated.

Some people (I have seen them, are perfectly content to just “do their job”.  Progress isn’t important.  It’s like walking on a treadmill.  They go through the motions and go to the meetings and try not to get in any trouble.  These people enjoy big companies.  I saw alot of them at Intuit.  In fact, they sometimes will be antagonistic to progress because it will disturb the status quo.  Progress changes things.

Right now, I am having trouble feeling like I am making progress.  My energy has been spread thin across many projects that slowly move forward but few “finish”.  I need to finish a few things to get back on track.  I wrote my presentation for AjaxExperience, but I am not convinced that it is “perfect”.  So it is not “finished”.  Thus, I am stressed.   Add in all the other projects in the same state and I am in a bay way.

Anyway like all things, this too shall pass.

Comments

3 responses to “The UX of Making Progress”

  1. kt Avatar
    kt

    Just like Anette Benning’s character in Running with Scissors? Please don’t divorce me and have a relationship with a neighborhood house husband.

  2. lux Avatar
    lux

    Heya Glen — take a look at “Getting Things Done”. I’m working my way through it and finding it’s useful in reducing my stress level about my out of control task list.

  3. Jörn Zaefferer Avatar

    I think its pretty easy to get addicted to “making progress”. After a few good days, a few bads hurt much more than everything being average. I suspect that the good/bad result will still be much better then the average.

    Maybe whats lacking is time to think, as this Talk at Google puts it into much better words than I could: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KHGcvj3JiGA (watched that on the plane today, slides have to much text, but overall very interesting)

Whatya think?