What I've been up to

Not much house stuff. Work got crazy this week. I'm in charge of App1, which we're currently working on version 2 of which will integrate with a very large system we've bought from a vendor. I have a steno notebook which I'm keeping my to-do list in. I have a full page of items (one item per line), and the list never seems to shrink. One item comes off, 2 more go on. We're losing one of the key developers provided by the vendor, and guess who's going to be picking up the stuff he had been doing. So, a quick rundown on what I've got on my plate:

• Manage App1 version 1
• New system analysis and investigation for writing specs, queries, etc. to be used by App1 version 2
• Updates to multiple reports and web screens for VendorPackage, including working out the exact requirements for what has to be done.
• Set up new repository for managing VendorPackage project documentation.
• Teach people how to use Subversion for the above
• Mock up some forms to ask people to use when requesting changes so I don't have to ask a million questions when they send me a one-sentence request for a change.
• Work with App1 developer to work out how to run multiple instances of App1 version 2 on the same web server, each instance pointing at a different database environment (it was originally designed for a 1:1 relationship).
• Develop test scripts/scenarios for App1 version 2.
• Various impromptu meetings and phone calls to discuss all of the above.
• About to start learning our new check scanning/processing system. Currently covering for someone else while the vendor does some debugging, but I don't know any of the history of what's been going on with the issues thus far.

Time management has been interesting. I disabled my email notification app today so that I wasn't constantly interrupted by messages coming in. That had me feeling out of the loop, but I was able to concentrate. I also started blocking out time in my calendar - from 8 to 9, I'd only work on task 1, 9 to 10 task 2, and so on. If I tried to task-switch on demand, I just wouldn't have gotten anything done. It worked pretty well, until about 10:30 AM, at which point I had to start talking to other people and taking phone calls. I was able to get back to it in the afternoon.

So much to do, so little time.