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Wayne Smallman
Wayne Smallman

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How do you maintain momentum?

If planning is a science, then timing is an art, and the more complex a plan is, the more critical time — and timing — becomes.

So it's vital I maintain momentum, or risk the slump, the sag, or the flop! Low places that are difficult to climb out from, and are places I hate to be.

This is a Sunday morning here in the north of England, and I've been flat out, cramming as much work as is feasible before I go for a 9-10k walk at 11am.

I run multiple threads of things, where each delivers something on short times scales — like improving the UX of a feature, refactoring some code to test a new thing I've learned and so on — but contribute to that greater whole.

Where the slump, the sag, and the flop come into things is when I have to reach out, ask for help, need authorization, require some essential piece of data or information, and I wait — then wait, and do some more waiting.

I mitigate against this by switching to some other thread, to keep the momentum going.

I get it, no-one but me works on Smallman Standard Time!

So, how do you maintain momentum?

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