This is the final report about my temporal stop starting new projects. (update #1, update #2).

Progress Update

Before digging into details, one thing is clear: I did not manage to finish all the tasks / projects in all the weird places I put them. Although this was my intention, the progress I made gave me a much better overview over where my energy goes. I think stopping taking on new projects from time to time could be a great exercise for mental health and focus.

Here is the final amount of stuff-to-do:

• 26 tasks and projects in todo.txt => 13.
• Most of the items in this file are notes from learning new technologies or information for running projects. I consider this to be OK because I learn whenever I can, in between the more important main projects. I see this file now more as a work directy, not as tasks that have to be finished right away.
• 25 tasks and projects in an OneNote page regarding my main project => 0.
• I managed to move everything into the infrastructure of this project and away from this “only-me-place”.
• 1 OneNote page that was originally designed to be a tracking list for my projects => Gone!
• 16 projects in an OneNote page for one of the teams I’m supporting => Gone!
• Well, lucky me. My participation in the team ended a couple of days ago.
• 1 Android-Phone-Project: No progress here yet => Gone!
• I realized that the effort for this is simply too much in resepct to just buying a new device.
• 17 tasks and projects in a list in my phone: Gone!
• 30 tasks and projects in my main project list in my organizer => 22 left.
• Clean desk => Roughly 50% of “stuff” on my desk has been processed, the rest is mainly reference.

I wrote before: This was a great (meta-) project because it slowed me down quite a lot, which is great for a limited amount of time. As life goes, two huge project opportunities (and some minor ones) presented themselves some weeks ago. I just couldn’t say “no” to those. :)