Goals - Priorities - To-Do Lists
From FiranMUX
One of the responsibilities of the Information Area is to keep track of goals and priorities. This can be really difficult especially on a game where there are gazillion amounts of information. I am by no means an expert but I am wide-known for my OCD on the game so I thought I would offer a bit of advice. While, this might be useful to just wizards as far as Firan goes, I thought I'd share in case it's helpful to everyone.
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Goals
Goals on this game are really established at three different levels to me: Game-Wide Goals, Staff Goals and Personal Goals.
Game-Wide Goals
These are things such as 'We would like to run more Tinyplots'. These are usually more vague than the various goals that make up that one idea. Another example of a game-wide goal would be 'Reducing the footprint of the database'. These are very overall goals that we try to meet. I think everyone usually participates in these goals because the Staff Goals and Personal Goals often roll up into these. It's not always necessarily true with all goals but there are places where all these come together. Usually, these goals are set by Steph and Adam or a group of wizards/players will come up with a problem and solution that a game-wide goal will address.
Staff Goals
Staff goals are more specific than a game-wide goal. For example, running a tinyplot by April Fool's meets the game-wide goal of running more Tinyplots. Generally, everything wizards work on are meant to meet some sort of game-wide goal. That isn't to say that we never play or have fun. There are just as many personal projects that give as much to the game as other more high priority jobs.
Personal Goals
Personal goals are ones that are specific to ourselves. For example, I have a personal goal of learning more about SQL. There are actually jobs on Firan that actually let me do this so that's pretty neat. A character might have a goal of learning swimming of 5. Most likely, to get there they will need XP or a teacher, so this forwards roleplay and that's really a game-wide goal since we tend to enjoy that.
Priorities
Priorities are how we determined what to work on first, how much to work on, etc. Making priorities can be extremely difficult especially on Firan where there seems to be one hundred things going on at one time. Recently, the staff has become more focused on sharing priorities, tracking them and altering them as needed. Without making good priorities, people can get trapped in paralysis of sorts where they have a lot to do and nothing gets done. To prevent that danger, it's important to make good priorities!
The staff priorities can be found here Staff Priorities for This Week.
Tips for Setting Priorities
1. Determine How Much Time You Have It's important to determine how much time you really are going to have. Everybody has many obligations including family, school, Firan, other games, hobbies, house, etc. If you are a person without a lot of free time, there is no possible way to do five Firan things a day. If you are a person with a little more free time, you may be able to meet that goal (though it's not always encouraged due to burn out). The important point is that one has to be reasonable. For example, I have a very large list of priorities but I know personally I'm going to probably only meet 2-3 a week. I think meeting 2-3 Firan priorities a week outside of roleplay is reasonable for me right now and is a good contribution without burning me out. Everyone is definitely different.
2. Get Advice Sometimes it can be hard to set a priority. The really awesome fuzzy bunny code would be really fun but there's a tinyplot due by April. If you're just really not sure what direction to go in, get some advice. It could be that it's November and you really could wait to schedule that TP and code fuzzy bunnies. It could be March and it needs to move forward now. Other people can be really helpful for adjusting focus.
3. Write them Down If you don't write a priority item down, it might be something that is lost forever. Some people have excellent memories but often I find that I promise people things but I don't scribble it down right away. For me, it's more awkward not to remember it was going to be done than to be delayed doing it.
4. Be Willing to Delegate Be sure that none of your priorities cannot be delegated. It's sometimes less work to make sure making a list of every food item Firan has is getting done than write down the list yourself. There are a lot of hands on Firan than can help meet these without the work falling on one person.
5. Time Yourself It's important to understand how much something will take. It really surprises me how many requests I can get done in 15 min. but I know a job is usually going to take a lot longer. If you plan to do a large code job this week, there might not be a ton of time for requests. If it's the middle of festival and you are responsible for being the festival wizard, it's not going to be easy to get the code job done. It might be easier to squeeze in 15 min. of requests here and there.
6. Learn to Say No Is your priority list over the top crazy? Are a lot of them immediate and emergency? It's time to learn how to say no without guilt. One person cannot do everything and if your priority list is overburdened it might be good to use saying no along with being willing to delegate. The best way not to be stuck at one am fretting because a job wasn't done is to say that you don't have time with it to start. Sure, the person asking might be disappointed but compromise on timing of things is one of the ways we all get things done.
To-Do Lists
A to-do list should come from your priorities. There are variety of to-do lists out there but if you have a prioritized list of things to do it should be easy to figure out what to do when you're logged in. For example, if you need to focus on requests, it's easy to remember to do that first thing when you log in. If you need to get a plot request finished, it should be number one. For my part, I make a large list of everything I have to do during the day in order. It's a very large list and I know I won't get it all done but I carry over items I did not finish to the next day. It's also color-coded but I already pointed out my OCD. For some people, a small post-it can be used to keep the list small. Whatever the choice, it's important to understand what needs done and how much of it can be done. This is important because if people get mired then they might not get anything done!
Most of all, leave some time for play!
