Just one thing

For me to feel good about my work I try to set the bar low. Pretty low. Each day I set out to get one thing done. Just one. I pick it, and I hope to get it done. On a really good day I might get two things that I've set aside for myself done. I think that there was one day a couple of years ago that I was able to get three things done, but my memory is fuzzy on the details.

Now, this isn't to say that I just do a single thing. I get lots of things done in any given day, just different things than I planned to get done. That's frustrating, but somewhat necessarily. I find myself in the afternoon saying something like "Now I can start the thing that I planned to do yesterday (or 3 days ago)".

Today was a good day. I think that I got 3 things done, and one was a tricky issue.

Part of my slow downs are due to the shit underpowered hardware we use and using a 32bit OS that limits that amount of RAM we can toss at a problem. RAM is so cheap now, but we're stuck watching the processes and trying to scale back things. The other causes include interruptions and genuine issues that come up during the day that need to get done "now". My patience varies with the issues and who presents them. Like when someone tells me that X doesn't work at all in Y and I need to fix Z, depending on the person, I carefully check if X does in fact work on Y before even considering Z. Some people have a trouble correctly identifying X. Or Y. Or even Z for that matter.

But in spite of the hardware issues, large organization nonsense, and confused people, some days I can actually get something done and that's all I need. Just one thing.