Write In: Time Management and Catch Up

Q: Hi Jim,
I have 2 basic "projects" that I spend my time on, and I try to spend 1/3 of my time on one, and 2/3 on the other.  I keep track of the time I spend on each, and try to make the minutes balance out.  Here's my question:  At the end of the week, if I have a surplus or a deficit on one side, should I carry that over into the next week?  Or should I start each week fresh - at 0?  What do you think?

A: The answer is yes if you are consistently not giving one of the projects its due over the course of weeks. For example, if project B is more boring, and some weeks you never hit it, but it's very important, then catch up is required.

The answer is no if you give project A more attention one week and project B more attention on another In this case it's probably balancing itself out, more or less, and overall you're being more productive because you're working on things that you're more enthused about or have opportunities with (e.g., you just found a great paper related to it and just had to read it and incorporate).

Feel free to write in with your own questions to jim@jimdavies.org, with the subject line "write in."