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Time Management: Boost Personal Performance With Caching Techniques

By alik levin

January 9th, 2009 | Time Management


Ask any software engineer “What’s the best performance improvement technique?” and in 99% your will get the answer - Caching.

What’s caching?

In computer science, a cache (pronounced /kæ?/) is a collection of data duplicating original values stored elsewhere or computed earlier, where the original data is expensive to fetch (owing to longer access time) or to compute, compared to the cost of reading the cache. In other words, a cache is a temporary storage area where frequently accessed data can be stored for rapid access. Once the data is stored in the cache, future use can be made by accessing the cached copy rather than re-fetching or recomputing the original data, so that the average access time is shorter.

A cache has proven to be extremely effective in many areas of computing - Wikipedia

Can it be “extremely effective” in areas other than computing? My answer is “Yes”. Here are few techniques I adopted from computing to my real world. Specifically, I apply the techniques to how I manage my tasks.

Caching Principles At Work

To make it effective for the cache one must follow the principles (adapted from performance engineering):

  • Cache the data in the form closest to that which you can use. I manage my tasks in Outlook 2007 as email items (I do not use Outlook’s built-in tasks features which requires additional actions that only add overhead). Managing tasks as email items is very handy since it is easy to manipulate it - scan it, edit it, move it, and email it. I do not waste time to transform it in order to take any of these actions.
  • Discard stale data in your cache periodically. I follow a simple discipline to discard the tasks that are of no interest any more (finished, deferred, dropped, etc). This helps me keep my tasks lists clean and easy to scan saving time dramatically.
Time Management
  • Set cache limits. When my number of tasks grows beyond of limits I set beforehand (say 20 tasks per project) I know time to sweep the list and clean it. This helps focusing only on significant tasks - those that get me close to the project’s goals faster.
  • Choose the right cache location.  I decided to use Outlook and email items as my cache location. Why? Since it helps me manage it in form closets to that which I can use it (read first bullet). Also it synchronizes nicely with my mobile phone. Even my shopping list I manage this way (and My wife knows it perfectly).
  • Avoid distributed caches. My tasks are stored in one place - Outlook email items folders. No other places. Otherwise I’d waste tons of time and energy looking for it and synchronizing it.

Results

  • My context switching (one of the biggest killers in software performance) is optimized so when I switch from one project to another I can easily pick up on the most relevant tasks in no time.
  • I do not waste time in looking for tasks related to the project.
  • I give my mind relief from remembering unnecessary stuff.
  • I work faster and accomplish more in less time. And then go home.


5 comments ↓

#1 J.D. Meier on 01.10.09 at 8:01 am

Context switching is indeed a performance killer.

Having one place to look is an important lesson. I actually remember the day somebody said that and it echoed through my mind … “you need one place to look for it.”

#2 alik levin on 01.10.09 at 3:31 pm

Thanks, JD.
The more I learn computer performance the more I can see how it maps directly to the “real” world.
I am on my quest to re-adopt/re-adapt computer performance tehcniques back to the “real” world.

#3 Jimmy May, Aspiring Geek on 01.10.09 at 7:50 pm

This is a great high-level explanation of your system. The metaphor of computer cache for the items at the top of our lists is perfect, as is the concept of context switching.

I like many of your points, and one that hit home for me was avoidance of distributed caches.

I am a big fan of Outlook 2007, yet as I perfect my GTD strategery I have switched much of my cache to OneNote because of the lack of friction including the speed with which I can get to my projects. But OneNote lacks features of Outlook I would find useful.

Outlook is often a source of friction for me. Even though I have a state-of-the-art laptop with the latest-&-greatest patches, fast CPUs, a 7200rpm HDD, & 4GB RAM, in Outlook I’m frequently confronted with the “hurry-up-&-wait” icon, for l-o-n-g seconds at a time. Whereas OneNote is friction-free in this regard.

Do you have this problem with Outlook?

#4 alik levin on 01.10.09 at 8:01 pm

Jimmy,
I do… and it drives me mad sometimes.

Why I am not switching to other tool like OneNote?

Remember “avoid distributed caches” rule? That is why. I am on tools diet. So I traded it this way.

BTW, it usually happens when you paste from internet pages, right? That is why I paste plain text into OL. It never gets stuck. Try Copy the content (Ctrl+C) and then Ctrl+Alt+V for paste.

Liked it?

Here are some more shortcuts:
http://blogs.msdn.com/alikl/archive/2007/04/29/my-favorite-shortcuts.aspx

#5 Jimmy May, Aspiring Geek on 01.10.09 at 10:35 pm

Alik, the irritating delays are often whimsical. But yes copying from a web page is a common cause.

However, what you describe is a common reason. according Microsoft Principal Development Lead Alon Brown, the reason for the paste problem is synchronous download of the CSS embedded in the web page from which you’re copying, which is something required by the rendering engine shared by Outlook & Word. This explains why the problem disappears when formatting. is stripped. This behavior is entirely unrelated to Vista and did not exist in previous versions of Office.

You may be happy to know that the Office teams are keenly aware of the problem & aim to fix it for v.Next.

I use PureText, a free download, to strip formatting. The shortcut is Win+V. (I put the executable in my Startup folder.)

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