That’s where good time management skills come in. If you take the time to plan your days and weeks effectively, you should be able to meet your deadlines and keep a smile on your face (and your clients’). There is no “silver bullet” to keeping it together, but I’ve got a few recommendations for how to take control of your time:

1. Keep a master to-do list. Record all of your tasks, large and small. Divvy up your list by day, project, or task type. Update it by the end of the day, and feel like a superstar when you cross something off. This is an obvious concept, but not everyone does it. Here are a few recommended tools to help you out: Teux Deux, Wunderlist, Clear, Things.

2. Get your priorities straight. You need a good understanding of how you can structure your weeks, and your days. If you sit down for 20-30 minutes at the beginning of the week, you should be able to preview your deadlines, meeting time, and “free” time to figure out how you’ll get everything done. If you do this, you’ll know what tasks take precedence for the day or the week. If you need help, check with your project managers. They should always be able to help with task priorities. If you don’t have a project manager, check your project milestones. If you don’t know where those are, you need to read a different article…

3. Make your to-do list #1 on your to-do list. Review and revise your morning to-do list before you get embroiled in the dramas of “inbox zero.” Determine what must be done today and what can be completed tomorrow, and prioritize accordingly. Then check your email. If you have to rework your to-do list after you get through your unread messages, that’s fine. You just need some time to pull your thoughts together before interacting with the world.

4. Status! Be sure to check in with your team. A quick in-person (or Skype/phone/whatever) review of the day’s tasks with your team can work to your advantage. A quick check-in forces you to organize your thoughts and task priorities in advance of the meeting, and, by bringing tasks up with a team, it will make you feel more accountable. (Bonus tip: someone might hear that you’re overloaded and offer help!)

5. Focus on one thing at a time. No matter what you are doing, it’s easy to be side-tracked by another task, conversation, or awesome story. All of those things divert your attention and leave your to-do in the dust. When you’ve got one task to complete, do it. If that means you need to throw on your headphones and crank the Celine Dion, do it. If it means you need to ignore the office or your best friend from high school on Instant Messenger, do it. If a coworker really needs you, they will come over to your desk. If there’s an emergency at home, you will get a phone call. You need time to just get work done. TAKE IT.

Also related: Stop being a social media d-bag! Seriously, turn off Twitter, Facebook, RSS feeds, and even log out of your LiveJournal account. Let’s face it: you don’t care that much about the Twitter feud of the day. Turn off the noise and focus on what needs to be done.

6. Be proactive. Do you have a deadline that is contingent upon the delivery of something else (a teammate’s work, a client’s documentation, etc.)? If you do, don’t just sit there and wait for it. Ask for it. Chances are, asking will not only give you a better sense for where your task resides on your priority list; it’ll also save you the stress of not knowing where it is. A general rule of thumb in life should be: the more you can communicate, the better off you will be.

7. Learn to say “No.” Or, “Sorry, no.” We all love to help others in a time of need. The problem is, it is so easy to let outside tasks and events creep into our days and eat up the time we thought we had. Clearly, those added tasks can get in the way of the priorities (see number 2). Think about it: do you really have time to help with something? Maybe not. So, what do you do? Say “Sorry, I just can’t,” take a breath and move on. It’s totally fine. If you really feel compelled to help, ask if it can be done at a time that is convenient for you. It’s not easy telling people no, but sometimes you have to.

8. Check your email on your own terms. Just because someone can contact you immediately does not mean that you have to respond to them immediately. As long as you set communication expectations and people know how to reach you in an emergency, you can answer most types of email just a few times a day.

Try Ryan Irelan’s email tips and see if that works for you. (Side note: I think Ryan is great, but his approach to email would never work for me, because I need to be in touch with clients all day. But, it works for Ryan, and he wrote an article about it, so hey.)

9. Find your productivity zone. Think about the times when you’re most productive and use them to your advantage. For instance, I know that my brain is far stronger between 8:30 and 10am, so I use that time to power through as much work as possible. Sometimes I am completely shocked by how much I have accomplished in just a couple of hours, and it’s all because I am at my best at that time. I also know that I am completely brain-dead starting at 10:01am, so I just sit at my desk and play Solitaire (don’t tell Greg Hoy).

10. Plan for the unplanned. That’s right. You KNOW there will be more meetings and curveballs. Set a schedule that will help you to get work done—uninterrupted.

Some of us have the luxury of setting up a schedule that works for us. For instance, at Happy Cog, we’ve taken a page out of Jason Fried’s book Rework and instituted “No Meeting Zones.” Our master calendar is blocked from 9am-1pm each day. This gives everyone the time they need to focus on deadlines without the burden of meetings. The only folks who are exempt from this rule are project management and business development, because their jobs rely on conversations and flexibility to meet.

Another intriguing option comes from the folks at GatherContent in London. Recently, James Deer, the company’s founder, instituted a new weekly work schedule that revolves around a lifestyle and culture that keeps people happy and productive.

The team’s week is split into “Team” days (Mondays and Thursdays) and “Focus” days (Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Fridays). On Team days, everyone must be in by 9am for a morning review of tasks, and a day full of work and planned conversations (they don’t use the term “meeting”). On Focus days, the team members can work from wherever they want (local coffee shop, home office, bed!), from 9am-5pm or 10am-6pm. Focus days are meant for the team to work in a place where they can be inspired to get their best work done on a timeline that feels flexible within their personal schedules, while still working within the regimen of a typical work day. So far, it has been a success for the team.

Finding a balance to keep a group of people productive is far more difficult than it is to manage just your own schedule. But, providing a bit of flexibility in the work week to help others plan for tasks that will inevitably creep into a pristine to-do list can be extremely valuable.

Time is Ticking

Hopefully you weren’t SO busy that you only skimmed this or never made it to the end. If you’re skimming to the end to save time, here is the moral of the story: You can slice a pie 1,000 ways, but you can only feed so many people. Working through your schedule with a set way of organizing your tasks will help you to understand just how many people you can feed.

Carry on with your day utilizing some or all of these tips, and you will become a true TMM (Time Management Master, duh). Or, tell me what I missed! Do you have anything to add to this list? Or, are there things you struggle with on a daily/weekly basis in terms of time management? Leave them in the comments below, or better yet, Tweet it!

Let me take a step back. I love the idea of modifying a stagnant Waterfall process by doing things more quickly and efficiently. But those minor modifications don’t make your process “Agile.” At an extremely high level, Agile is an approach, typically used in software development, that helps teams respond to the unpredictability of building software through incremental, iterative sprints. It empowers the team building the product to make decisions based on a set of requirements and deliver on them. When you’re working with clients, that is often impossible for a number of reasons, like the subjectivity of design or a client’s ability to stick to a timeline.

There are also Agile standards for collaboration and documentation, which are defined in the Agile Manifesto. If you’re working true Agile, this is your process bible. We worship at the altar of the client, so our principles are based on the following:

1. Adapt process to support the client’s capabilities.
2. Some conversations have to occur in person. Accept no substitutions.
3. Transparent communication is the best kind of communication.
4. Great ideas come from everywhere.
5. Be accommodating, but assert expertise where needed.

Some of these principles might cross over with Agile principles, but Agile spinoffs like Lean, Wet Agile, Scrum, and Extreme Programming (extreme!), etc. tell us all we need to know. Variations of Agile were born out of a need to do things differently. The difference for us is how we approach each project: they’re all unique, with unique clients and users. So, we use various methods to construct a project process that works for us and our clients on each project.

Wanting to be Agile

At Happy Cog, we are constantly trying to improve our process. Recently, we’ve run tasks like UX and graphic design concurrently to save time and increase collaboration. It’s been an interesting learning curve, but we’re starting to reap the benefits. At our core, we want to be more agile; we’re embracing change, continuing improvement, being as flexible as possible, and adapting as we see fit. The thing is, we won’t ever truly be Agile, as the Manifesto states. That’s okay, as long as we say what we will be.

Blame it on the clients

Sorry clients, but you’re the reason we can’t fully work Agile. At the heart of it, we’re in the client services business, and we want our clients’ input to make our projects successful. Each site that Happy Cog has launched has benefited from good client collaboration and interaction. It starts with our Project Definition phase, where we gather as much institutional knowledge as possible from our clients through research, analytics reviews, and stakeholder and user research. From there, we deliver a brief that outlines our understanding of the clients, the design problem to be solved, and the project at hand. We deliver that to our clients to make sure we’re in agreement on what we’re about to build together.

When we do start working through tough UX and design decisions, we seek client input. We propose ideas and have conversations with our clients about what will work best for their users. Could we do that in sprints? Perhaps, but we won’t, because it doesn’t help facilitate the conversation or advance the experience. In fact, it seems to turn the user experience into a reactive exercise devoid of broader possible executions.

When we get into an engagement, we assess our clients’ team and its methodologies. We’ll make recommendations on what we think will work in terms of process and stakeholder reviews, but at the end of the day, we’ll adapt to what our clients think will work for them. Within that expectation, we’ll apply the process that typically works for us. After all, we know what will make our work better. Sometimes it’s waterfall, sometimes it’s Agilish. Whatever it is, it will have to work for us and our clients.

Where does it work?

I see potential for us be more more agile in development. We essentially deliver front-end code in sprints now, and we often will set up a CMS development schedule that is based on sprints or check-ins to show progress. Once all of the “look and feel” decisions are out of the way, our developers should be able to roll through and just build everything. Lately, that hasn’t been the case. We’ve had a few late-in-the-game changes that require late design or UI decisions to be made. So, even then, we’re breaking true Agile methodologies.

We’ve also done some experimentation with working in sprints through the design process on a few recent projects. Essentially, after a client has signed off on a concept, we go in to three-week sprints where an internal design deliverable is created in the form of a PSD. That’s delivered to a front-end developer, who then delivers coded page designs to the client. From there, we’ll get feedback that can not only affect the design system that we are building, but can also affect front-end code. Sure, in most cases, the design will be edited in code, but putting that much work in front of a client without prior sign-off of a wireframe feels pretty risky. That’s the thing: you have to be okay with some risk when you’re Agile. But still, the fact that we need a concept approved by the client means that we’re just not Agile.

I think that if Happy Cog wants to truly embrace Agile, it will have to be on an internal project. Removing the client side role (figuratively), we could assemble a team, build requirements, and then work off of them to create a solution through iterative sprints. Maybe we’ll try it someday, but when it comes down to working with clients, I don’t think we’ll ever truly make Agile work.

What’s in a name?

Our process is just that: our process. It isn’t all Waterfall or strict Agile; it will change based on the project and client needs. As soon as we get comfortable with a defined tool, technique, or process, the time will come to adapt to a new set of standards. Until then, we just have to figure out what we should call our process (hint: it’s NOT Agile).

What process do you use? Are you guilty of using the buzzword? Or have you made true Agile work in web development?

Fast forward thirty years and I still use headphones every day (though they don’t look like this and I no longer ride a big wheel), and music is still a huge part of my life, filling every available minute. It inspires me to work faster, helps me concentrate on a task, or drowns out activity that I need to ignore for the sake of a deadline. I know I’m not the only one who works this way. What fascinates me is how we use headphones in the workplace, and what it says about us.

On/Off

At Happy Cog in Philadelphia, we have an open, shared space. It’s a space that fosters conversation, collaboration, and teamwork. I took a quick poll across Happy Cog, and it was unanimous: we all work to music when the task allows. That said, there is almost always music playing throughout our office over AirPlay. Right now, DJ Diamond Dave DeRuchie is bumping some R&B. (My headphones are on.) Later on, someone will play the new Shins album or maybe we’ll do a round robin and each select a song from the 80s, or some other theme. We’ve even toyed with creating Rdio playlists for days of the week.

While interviewing candidates for an open position, we often ask, “Are you a headphones on or a headphones off kind of person?” Symbolic really, but the answer gives us some insight into how the candidate handles distractions at work, and if they are social. Can you concentrate when you’re at one long desk and have music playing, and possibly 14 other team members chatting about work or occasionally laughing about a YouTube video?

The question seems simple, but it can speak volumes (zing!) about how someone might fit into our work environment. At the same time, it’s a way for us to let candidates know, “Hey, we work in a small space where every team member is invited to join a conversation, collaborate on work, and listen to music. Does this environment suit your work style?”

There’s a lot one can learn working with colleagues that only headphones can teach us. For some, “headphones on” means they are heads down, uninterruptible. It’s a clearer message than any IM status can communicate. For others, it just means they are indulging some musical urge (ahem…Adele, Katy Perry) that they don’t want to subject others to unnecessarily. Also, the way we use headphones varies wildly from person to person. For instance, I’ve found myself with headphones on for hours with no music coming out of them. That’s concentration. And, of course, some people don’t use them at all, because the white noise of music playing in the background works just fine. What I’ve never witnessed, though, is someone wearing their headphones all the time, without interruption. There may be times when a little white noise is necessary, but there isn’t a person on our team who isn’t available to collaborate and communicate openly throughout the day. And that is what matters the most—being available and not shutting yourself off to the team.

What does “headphones on” mean in your work environment? Do your team members have any other “tells” you look out for to indicate what they’re doing, or working on?

The Bonus Track

What do you listen to while working? I asked the folks of Happy Cog to provide some tracks they like to work to. What’s most interesting to me is that it ranges from metal to instrumental. We all work to what doesn’t distract us. Check it out and feel free to add a track and leave a comment.

BH: I know you like process. We talk about it all the time. Tell me why.

KS: I came to design from a pretty non-traditional place. I studied avant-garde filmmaking in college. That education didn’t give me the tools that make up the design process like typography, layout, design patterns, that sort of thing. It did, however, give me some pretty useful tools for dealing with the creative process and craftsmanship, so what I fall back on is process. While most of my peers spent their education and early career working in design and learning at the hands of great design teachers, I was developing my ability to form conceptual ideas through process. Process just works well for me both in the way I work, as well as in the way I give direction. As a result, I tend to be pretty deliberate and spend a bit of sweat equity to solve design problems. I tend to work harder at getting to the solution for stuff that most people find easy.

BH: Interesting, so it’s not all about visuals for you right away. Your thinking goes from conceptual to tactical. I can see that in how you present your work to clients. So, in terms of process, what works for you?

KS: Understanding that every project is different. I think it’s important to adapt creative process appropriately. I try to look at a project from a very high view and decide what it is to me, or at least what my gut tells me the project is. I might ask myself, “Is this a content heavy site, an e-commerce site, an ‘app?’” From that distance I can decide everything from what sort of exercises I want to go through at our kickoff meeting to how many concepts the design team will create for the project.

I hate the idea of change just for the sake of change and I think it’s far more valuable to evolve your process than to start over from the beginning every time. I was lucky enough to work under the tutelage of Chris Cashdollar who taught me his Rule of Three approach to projects. I think there’s some very valuable advice in there for people who lead design teams, and, if you’ve read it already, believe me, it’s worth rereading. My own design process generally doesn’t absolutely follow Chris’ prescribed approach of 3 concepts, but his statement, “Designers should attack projects with obvious gusto,” is something we both heartily agree on. As designers and team leaders, we can and should always do more.

When it comes to presenting work to clients, my intent is to deliver not only our beautiful design work, but also the thinking that went into the design and how it relates to the project goals. A trap that I’ve seen a lot of young designers fall into is when they describe their work like screen real estate, walking the client through their work by describing everything from the header to the footer, indiscriminately and without the reasoning behind everything.

BH: I’m totally with you on being adaptive. Lately, I feel like we’ve been doing a lot of projects where we need to accommodate for tight deadlines and moving targets. They can be challenging, but also very, very rewarding. Can you point out a project where the process departed from the typical waterfall process, but worked for you? Or changed the way you wanted to work moving forward?

KS: Happy Cog is very adept at following a waterfall process. And I think we’ve done a great job using this process for lots of amazing projects. It’s not a broken process by any means. Recently, we’ve adapted this traditional waterfall approach for some projects.

What is interesting, though, is that more and more projects over the past couple years have been engagements with clients that follow an Agile process. This brings up an interesting question: Is it better for the client’s agile team to adapt by bringing us into their approach than it is for us to bring them into our process? We once had a client who asked us to turn around a page design in a couple of days. To be perfectly honest, I think every one of us on the design team took that as a bit of an affront. Our design work tends to be very thoughtful and carefully considered. We don’t typically throw ourselves into Photoshop and start cranking out work. In retrospect, it’s an interesting challenge to which we may need to adapt. The next time that happens, my thinking might say, “What can we accomplish in a two-day sprint without sacrificing our thoughtfulness? What can we do in the next two-day sprint that’s still carefully considered?” and so on. This idea of adapting ourselves to a client team is really interesting and a fun challenge to me.

BH: Have you always worked with a project manager?

KS: At my first design job, I worked in a small design studio that didn’t have a project manager and most of the projects in that studio were print design. Since that time, I’ve always worked with project managers. I would say, as a creative director, I’ve had to adapt my creative process as I’m working with project managers much more one-on-one and have much more interaction with clients than I used to. Almost all of the success of any project is determined by that client relationship. Understanding how deeply you need to serve the project’s business needs is much more acute now than when I was a designer whose engagement on a project could be measured in hours rather than weeks. 

BH: I definitely think understanding the business side of things can be a challenge for some designers because, in many ways, junior designers are kept away from the real client relationships and conversations. I try to bring that to the entire team, when possible, because I think it’s important for everyone on the team to fully understand the client’s point of view. On that note, how do you think a project manager can affect ideas in the creative process?

KS: Project managers are wonderful for the creative process. I love when PMs participate in brainstorms. They typically have an inside out understanding of the project and can offer insights into client expectations. They also tend to not be the ego-driven sort and help keep the brainstorms positive and moving forward. For the other, not so sexy, parts of the creative process, it’s great to have someone with whom I can collaborate on everything from the exercises at the kickoff meeting to helping organize creative reviews with the team. A project manager only wants you to do well and it’s great to have someone on your team that you can trust to not let you make a fool out of yourself.

BH: Yes, Kevin, I’m here to protect the world from your foolery. :) Aside from that, what is the best thing a project manager can do for you?

KS: I’m glad you asked this question. I think really great project managers are good listeners first and secondly optimists. Client work is incredibly rewarding, but even the best projects will hit a point that will cause a bit of frustration. For me, the best PMs are the ones that will openly share their own frustrations as well as hear your concerns with a sympathetic ear. Everyone needs to vent sometimes and it’s probably a pretty good idea to keep that away from the client. Once everyone has had a chance to vent, it’s easier to move on and think of a new approach to get past the frustration.

BH: Speaking of venting, what’s the worst thing that has happened to one of your projects as a result of poor, or no project management?

KS: Previous to Happy Cog, I worked at a huge ad agency (the name may or may not rhyme with ‘Laser-wish’). A very important client (one who made up about 90% of our revenue) had a project to redesign their corporate website. As it happened, our team first heard about it less than 2 days before the concepts were due. It might surprise you to hear there was no project manager on that project.

BH: Yikes! Do you think a PM could have rescued the design team from that mess? If so, how?
 
KS: That’s a tough one. The process was obviously so bungled by someone that the only thing a project manager could do at that point was help the poor guy in charge carry the contents of his desk to his car.

BH: Interesting. So, you know that we can’t fix everything. I find that we can help keep you on track with tasks, if you are open to it (not everyone wants that level of help, which is fine). What common things happen in your day that can destroy your productivity? Could a PM help to keep you on track?

KS: The most common thing that destroys productivity is Photoshop. If you could fix Photoshop that would be nice. Thanks! 
 

BH: I think that’s the number one complaint coming from designers. Sorry, I can’t help you with that. How do you keep yourself organized?

KS: I fill up notebooks with notes and sketches. I use TeuxDeux to track all my to-dos. I also try to keep my inbox as close to empty at all times so I don’t have to worry if I’ve forgotten to respond to someone on the team. I also use Google Docs for writing up notes for client presentations.

BH: We worked together in the Philly office for a while and I know you like one-on-one discussions. Now that you’re working with the San Francisco office and migrating to Austin, you’re working remotely more often. How does that affect your day-to-day work?

KS: It’s been a big challenge for me to adjust to remote communication. I prefer to be in the room collaborating with the rest of the team with markers and a sheet of paper. Nothing can replace that, so I’ve had to learn some new approaches to work within the limitations of what you can do remotely. I’m lucky to work with smart people like Ryan Irelan, who have been doing this for a lot longer and help me avoid making the same mistakes. What I’ve learned is be as deliberate as possible and to take your time to allow focus on one task at a time.
 
BH: I think this interview could go on for hours, but it wouldn’t need to. I chat with Kevin every day and learn something new from him every day. Working closely with all of my colleagues on projects helps me to understand how they like to work and how I can adapt my way of thinking and working to better accommodate their (and our client’s) needs.

Note: If you were born after 1986 or just don’t like movies and don’t get the reference, Cameron is like Eeyore. If you don’t get that reference, there is no helping you.

As a project manager here in our Philly office, a main part of my job is constantly monitoring our budgets, timelines, and resources. When I’m not eyeballing that stuff, I’m listening for issues that might pop up internally with the team, or with our clients. What I’m saying is, I’m used to handling issues, and in fact, I’m a total Ferris on a normal day! But…if something goes wrong and I haven’t had my coffee, I can turn into Cameron. I fully recognize that my coworkers can feel the effects of my attitude. It usually takes me a few minutes of internal rationalization to get over it. Sometimes it takes a quick realization that I am just outwardly being a jerk to someone I genuinely like and respect (sorry guys). It can be really difficult, but I try my best to not display a negative attitude when issues arise. I have to remind myself that it’s better to shield the team from negativity, because it can get in the way of really good, creative work.

The Unexpected Parade (Of Changes)

We all want everything to go as planned on our project work. Together, with our clients, we build a project plan we’re all comfortable with, so each next step should go according to plan. We have a scope, plan, and a process to fall back on, so why should anything change? Well, projects always change. A new idea comes up, a client finds out that a business goal is changing, whatever. We have to adapt and change can be hard.

Sometimes we roll with late changes, sometimes we push back, but we always resist the knee-jerk push back; we talk about the change(s) and discuss what we feel is best for our clients and their site users. We build websites for users and take project stakeholders’ goals into account when making decisions of all kinds—from architecture and design to code and development. If a change seems really questionable, we take a step back and ask the appropriate questions and address them. This is why we need to be flexible and nimble in web design.

This is where it gets fun. An unexpected change on a project hardly ever comes without some sort of groaning. It’s a truth about the way we work. We bond over the rough moments just as much as we do over the triumphs. It’s part of what helps us grow together as a team, I think. Challenges build camaraderie, and unexpected changes help us refine our internal processes. There is opportunity in every curveball.

Late changes are like the car crashing through window scene in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off: Without the chance to actually stand up to his dad, Cameron may have never recognized his own strengths. As web designers, we’re the same. Give us a problem and we’ll solve it. It might get a little messy and confusing or upsetting for a bit, but we will most certainly stand by our recommendations and figure out a way for our clients to understand our point of view, or at least discuss it with us.

Unlock Your Inner Ferris

Being a Cameron can be tough. On the one hand, it’s valuable if you are identifying issues for the sake of the team or the project. On the other hand, no one wants to hear a negative spin on a situation, or a problem without the hope of a solution. What it comes down to is your delivery. Have something negative to say? Think of a way to say it that isn’t going to completely wreck someone else’s day or trash the seventy hours of work they’ve already put into it. But be clear, be yourself. Imagine the most serious, low key person in your office or team. Got them? Now, imagine them bouncing off the walls like Ferris Bueller, cheerleading you and your colleagues. Creepy, right? Be yourself and say what you mean in plain words. Just be sensitive to context and people’s reactions. Teams have to resolve issues together.

Harness your inner Cameron and surface your inner Ferris. That’s right: Be approachable. Feel free to be goofy, but honest. Disarm others’ reactions to “bad news” and admit that you are about to be a downer. Maybe even carry a sad trombone. Okay, maybe don’t do that. No matter how you communicate, realize that your attitude at work matters as much as the quality of your actual work output. Being a Cameron might satisfy your urge to vent, but it won’t help anyone unless you communicate in a way that shows that you’re looking to help solve an issue. Trust me, it will put everyone on your team at ease if they understand that you are bringing up issues to help the team, not bring them down.

Here’s the best thing about Cameron: he ended up having a great day off, right? Well, maybe aside from the whole car thing? He let loose for a day and realized that he actually could have fun and accomplish something. Hey, you’re probably not in the movies, but I’m pretty sure you can do the same.

Are you a Cameron or a Ferris? What are your tips for keeping it real while not being a jerk?