Chapter 4 Flashcards — Finite Time
flashcards tsep time-management prioritization five-resources
What are the five resources a staff engineer must manage, beyond just hours?
?
- Energy — physical and mental capacity; depleted by stressful, draining work; built by energizing work
- Quality of life — sense of satisfaction, purpose, and enjoyment; eroded by meaningless or unsustainable work
- Credibility — others’ trust in your judgment; built by delivering; destroyed by over-promising and under-delivering
- Social capital — goodwill and relationships; spent when you call in favors or push through resistance; built through generosity and reliability
- Skills — technical and leadership abilities; grow when you’re challenged; stagnate when the work is too routine
What is the time graph and how do you use it?
?
A visual representation of commitments over time: x-axis = time, horizontal bars = commitments (length = duration, height = effort level). Stack bars to see when you’re overcommitted and when you have slack.
Use it by: drawing your existing commitments, then literally drawing any new request on top. If it pushes you into the red, you have a concrete visual to show why you can’t accept without de-prioritizing something else.
What is the bin-packing metaphor for work?
?
Work has shape, not just volume. Just as 3D objects have shapes that may not fit in a bin even if the total volume fits, work has characteristics that affect fit:
- Deep focus work needs large uninterrupted blocks
- High-frequency work fits in small gaps between things
- Emotionally demanding work can’t be stacked with other emotional demands
- Time-specific work has fixed scheduling constraints
Asking only “do I have the hours?” misses whether you have time blocks with the right shape for the work.
What are the seven sources of work for a staff engineer?
?
- Invited — explicitly assigned by manager or leader (high priority to accept)
- Ask — requested by peers or other teams (medium priority; relationship cost to decline)
- Idea — self-initiated; your own discretion
- Fire alarm — urgent problem requiring your specific skills (high urgency)
- Claiming — taking ownership of unowned important work
- Grassroots — bottom-up initiative needing a champion
- Meddling — inserting yourself into work that doesn’t need you (usually low value; common trap)
What are the five options when a project is a poor fit for you?
?
- Do it anyway — the organization needs it and your resources can absorb it
- Compensate — accept the project but negotiate: reduced other load, support resources, or timeline relief
- Let others lead — participate but hand the driver’s seat to someone better suited or who needs the growth
- Resize — negotiate the scope down to something that fits
- Say no — the project will deplete key resources and alternatives exist
What are the five diagnostic questions, one per resource, for evaluating a project?
?
- Energy: Will this energize or drain me? Can I sustain it for its expected duration?
- Quality of life: Will I be proud of this work in a year? Does it align with how I want to spend my working time?
- Credibility: Am I the right person to lead this? Will success or failure be attributed to me fairly?
- Social capital: What relationships will I need to use or build? What goodwill will I spend?
- Skills: Will I learn from this? Does it maintain areas I need to keep sharp?
Why is saying “no” sometimes better for credibility than saying “yes”?
?
A staff engineer who says yes to everything becomes an unreliable bottleneck — they commit to more than they deliver. Credibility is built by delivering on what you promise. If saying yes means you’ll fail to deliver, the credibility damage from over-promising is worse than the discomfort of declining. Reliable on fewer things > unreliable on many things.