Episode 593: Getting Shit Done

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Dave

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Zombie Cliche Lookout: Montage!

Show a lot of things happening at once,
Remind everyone of what’s going on (what’s going on)
And with every shot, show a little improvement
To show it all would take too long
That’s called a montage (montage)
Girl we want montage (montage)

– Montage | Team America: World Police

That really says it all, doesn’t it? When you’ve got a lot of things that you need to show, or something that changes gradually over time, what better way to do it than with a montage? Naturally, it’s a little different in a comic than in a movie. Movies tend to do a lot of cross-fading and fades to black in order to show a transition in time. That doesn’t work so well with static images, so instead we have to just use a different scenario for each panel.

About this Episode:

I realize that I use the term “Get Shit Done” a fair bit with this comic. I do that because it’s one of my favorite phrases, and something that I am trying to turn into a bit of a personal motto. As a bit of context, here’s the coffee cup I use every day:

My Get Shit Done coffee mug

They also do a framed poster with this print. It’s glorious, and some day I’m going to have it in my office.

Other News:

I recently reviewed the book Threnody. I enjoyed it, but had some criticism about some of the word choice and other minor issues. I just received and email from the writer who let me know that he has re-released the book to address these issues. I think this is super cool, so if any of you were on the fence about this book, maybe this will help you make the call.

Discussion Question: Dealing with Big Jobs

We can, unfortunately, not use a montage in real life to get through big, often unpleasant jobs. It’s a damn shame. If we could we’d all live rich, fulfilling lives six pack abs. So how do you deal with big jobs, unpleasant responsibilities, and things that just plain take a long time to do? Are you procrastinators? Do you meticulously break things down into smaller tasks? Do you just dive in and start working?

16 thoughts on “Episode 593: Getting Shit Done”

  1. Typo alert, Montage, line four: “take to long” to–>too 😀

    Not sure if the lyrics ignore correct spelling but in any case, that’s the only typo I can find for today! 😀

    • Damn, my only typo comes from something I copy/pasted.

      Ah well, fixed.

  2. As for Ted having two drills, I think it’s a brilliant idea! There are lots of cordless drills on the market these days, just look into any tradie’s ute and you’ll see what I mean! 😉 Having two drills will mean they can keep going in case they’re down to the last or second last screw to drive in! 😀

    • Oh yeah. I have two drills. Only one is cordless, but still.

  3. Aaah… time-management…. Like a lot of people I have a gruesome lot of (different) things to do at my day-job, besides that I have (sort-off) a complicated, but fun, personal life, with lots of stuff that needs to get done.

    To actually get things done I use a modified version of the “getting things done”-principle (GTD). This modification comes from the guys over at the Asian-Efficiency-website (They got some really good ideas (and some bad ones too 😉 ) and it works very good for me.

    Basically it’s everything I can do under two minutes, gets done on the spot, the rest goes into my system and out of my head so I can focus on the task which needs to be done.

    To keep everything going I use a synchronized “Omnifocus” on my phone, pad and mac combined with Evernote.

    Setting up the system is one time time-consuming, but after that it works pretty well.

    Besides all this… I AM a procrastinator. No system will get that out of my system. But I do have a list of procrastination-tasks, small easy tasks to be done when I’m procrastinating. Sometimes that gets me going and I get out of the procrastination mood and into the getting things done mood…. sometimes it doesn’t 😉

    • I’ve been reading a lot about GTD lately. It seems like everyone who does it modifies it in some way or another. What’s the deal with that? Is there a real good idea there, but the book just doesn’t quite get it right?

      • I don’t know what anybody else does. I do like the core ideas though I don’t use all the horizon’s stuff. The adaptations make it easier for me to deal with an ever-changing agenda and people walking in with all kinds of tasks interfering with the work at hand. I use an adaption from Asian Efficiency which makes me look swiftly at the lists every morning and make a “mini-listing” just for that day adapted to deal with the current agenda, my mood and energy (very important!) that day. I also use some specialized perspectives and contexts.

        Ah well…. in short, you’re right, the core idea is great, but it needs adaption for different people I guess.

        • Sounds like a pretty good system. I’m off to Google “Asian Efficiency System” now. You’ve got me intrigued.

  4. Ive got to look into the GTD system. I like the whole “2-minutes or less rule” The nature of my job these days is basically a series of long,involved projects constantly interrupted by people who don’t seem to understand that my job description does not involve being a full time facilitator for them.

    The system I currently use is to break things us into smaller tasks. Its a natural function of my Engineering background. A lot of tasks are extremely daunting when considered in their entirety, they have to be tackled one chunk at a time. The challenge of course is to maintain some degree of focus on the overall project and not forget that the chunk your working on isn’t the end in itself. For example, last summer I built a boulder retaining wall in my back yard. It came out to be 70ft long by 2.5ft high and I used roughly 12tons of boulders at an average weight of 250lbs each. When the trucks showed up and dumped all those boulders in my driveway my neighbor wandered over and we discussed the project. He wondered how I was going to tackle such a big project and I responded that it wasn’t a big project, it was roughly 96 little projects.

    • While I don’t do anything nearly as complex as engineering, I use similar techniques in my job. Everything gets broken down into the smallest component pieces, prioritized, and down. And, naturally, I’m constantly interrupted by little things, but I think that’s just the nature of work these days.

      By the way, that sounds like a hell of a project you did. Any photos of that online?

  5. I love this piece. Very organic and dynamic! You can sense the business and passage of time. “So much to do – so little time”

    • Is this a quote from somewhere?

      • Willy Wonka: So much time and so little to do. Wait a minute. Strike that. Reverse it. Thank you. 🙂

        • Ah! Thank you sir.

  6. Too bad you can’t play Eye Of The Tiger in a static webcomic.

    • It’s a damn tragedy is what it is.