The Old Joel on Software Forum: Part 3 (of 5)

Scheduling programming time

Usually my Outlook calendar stays fairly empty, even though I'm actually spending that time programming. Does anyone schedule blocks of programming time in Outlook? So that people will be able to tell that you're "busy"? People tend to schedule meetings during a nice empty block of time... prime programming in-the-zone time.

If you do put in your programming appointments, how do you integrate this with your task list? Is it just a mental connection, or is there some kind of software link I'm missing?

I have FogBUGZ for my task list, and Calendar for my time appointment list, and ne'er the twain shall meet?

nathan
Tuesday, January 6, 2004

always...and 1hr for lunch and everyday after 4 since i work from ?-4

apw
Tuesday, January 6, 2004

hah. 2 hours for every lunchtime to stop people scheduling meetings that run right up to lunch and then invariably overrun ;-)

SteveM
Tuesday, January 6, 2004

Yeah, when my schedule was in demand, I used to block off (optimistically, I'm afraid) 2 hours a day of coding time.

Brad Wilson (dotnetguy.techieswithcats.com)
Tuesday, January 6, 2004

Our firm makes heavy use of outlook calendar and task list.

The tasklist is just a list of tasks you want to get done....sometime soon.

Then we use the calendar (if we are diligent) to actually block off the time we intend to complete those tasks.

yes 'nary the twain shall meet' is a good comment, merging the too is hard.

I often just use my task list like a calendar. When I judge that the day has enough tasks due on it, then I stop making any tasks due on that day. (In my head it is a calendar I guess)

Aussie Chick
Tuesday, January 6, 2004

Yes -- I eventually got fed up of my 8am-4pm day ending in me being invited to meetings that involved people working a 10am-6pm day and who then expected me to work until 6pm.

{I say "work", I mean "sit in a meeting I needn't be in..."}

So I scheduled a daily 4pm task of "Katie goes home". Of course, most people don't bother to check outlook; they just email the people. Otherwise you can't double book people....

Katie
Tuesday, January 6, 2004