Technicians: Do You Have Enough Time?

Why do I think about this question? As a technician, I must handle many daily tasks, such as requirement reviews, system design, design reviews, coding, integration, testing, and delivery. I feel like there’s never enough time.

Then I learned about the Eisenhower Matrix:

• Important and urgent tasks: Go Go Go
• Important but not urgent tasks: Planning
• Not important but urgent tasks: Delegation
• Not important and not urgent tasks: Putting aside

While these categories make sense, they didn’t help much in practice; I still needed to think and experiment independently.

What is the core of this question? To complete my work, I need to organize where I spend my time, categorize it, and take action to optimize efficiency.

Where does the time go when completing work?

1. Doing my tasks — using my own time.
2. Requesting others’ collaboration — using their time.
3. Others seek my collaboration — using my own time.

The second part involves asking others for help. The focus should be on improving time use in parts 1 and 3 to optimize efficiency.

What is the biggest enemy when using my own time? Interruptions. Handling messages, emails, and colleagues coming to discuss matters causes countless interruptions. This is the core reason for my inefficiency in using my own time.

How to improve efficiency?

Photo by Benjamin Davies on Unsplash

Turn off any IM and email tools and learn to say no

How do we improve efficiency when others use their time? Using my own time can be self-controlled. When others use their time, it requires our cooperation, which we sometimes can’t control. For example, if someone comes to your desk, you can’t just refuse them, right? So, what to do then?

Why can’t we refuse? High-priority tasks (related to our role and job content), such as online bugs, must be responded to. But for non-high-priority tasks, why should we prioritize others and inconvenience ourselves?

Therefore, cooperate with colleagues reasonably:

1. High-priority responses (immediate handling)
2. Low-priority callbacks (not handled in real-time, dealt with after finishing own tasks)
3. Unreasonable requests: Say No (agreeing to unreasonable requests is self-inconveniencing)

Do you have enough time? Do you always respond immediately when someone comes to your desk? Do you often say no?

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