It’s the last day of (fiscal year) 2023! Pop the bubbly!
One of the perks of working for the State is regaining seasonality in my professional life (as opposed to the relentless race of private practice). We live on an artificially smooth planet, where seasonal rhythms are dampened in air conditioned boxes and food is always fresh with the magic of global logistics.
Of course I can’t fully escape the zeitgeist, my seasonality is not based on nature. I work under the overlay of a legal calendar.
Nevada’s legislature meets every two years, and they just completed the 2023 session, approving another slate of new projects. We’re off to the races, setting up projects, interviewing consultants, starting design.
In a few months our projects will be humming along and we’ll start due diligence on the next slate of Agency project requests. The Spring of even numbered years is our the busiest season, as we run between facilities, meeting with agency staff, discussing their needs, and estimating costs.
Once the budgeting is over, we get a slight breather to merely manage projects. Before you know it, the next election will have concluded, the new Legislature will start their new session at the beginning of each odd numbered year, and we wait for another wave of new projects at the start of the next fiscal year.
A fond goodbye to FY23, it was too busy! Unfortunately, FY24 looks to be only more hectic.
Hmmm, I just realized I have nine more bienniums in my career. Let’s make this one count!
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Some Links
Taegan MacLean started a series of monthly One Word documentary videos mixing his contemplations on life as a father and the early passage of his own father paired with interviews with interesting folks around Toronto. One of the privileges of the internet is watching the start of amazing projects!
I have no idea how Sam Kahn has the ability to range so widely and deeply, but Castalia is a one-man intellectual journal publishing deep provocative essays every other day.
On Saturday Mornings, Charlene Storey hosts a community post of “Everyday Magic” that have been a highlight of my weekends. Her Haver & Sparrow letters are gentle reminders to work diligently in the face of difficulty. She dances beautifully on that delicate line of being kind to oneself while avoiding self-indulgence.
I started this article three years ago. For better or worse that task management system has atrophied. I’m keeping the old parts (in italics) as brainstorming fodder for anyone attempting to create their own complicated systems.
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The key components of my task management system are:
Immediate Capture
Digital Curation
Daily Spreadsheet(s)
Weekly and Monthly Review
Immediate Capture
The first step is to write it down. Anywhere. I jot down things as they pop into my head and as they come up in conversations.
I prefer a notebook, but if I’ll use my phone if I must. Pen and paper gets ideas out of my head faster than a smartphone keyboard. In a pinch, I use Apple Reminders for immediate capture on the road, but I find it sluggish and I hate that it looks like I’m texting someone outside of the meeting.
I’ve settled on a 6″x9″ Steno notebook. I also keep a 4″x8″ Reporter notebook in the car for taking notes in the field, I prefer the width of the Steno, but the Reporter fits in my back pocket. The most important feature is that the notebook lies flat while open because it should always be open. It’s only closed when you first get it and when you file it away for good.
These notebooks are ephemeral objects. I never reference them after they’re done — I rarely even reference old pages, except to double check that of all todo’s have been crossed off. I use a green highlighter to signify that the task has been either completed or transfered to my digital task management system.
Digital Curation
My primary task management system is on the computer. Every day, I clear through my notebooks and my phone and move work related tasks into Microsoft Outlook and personal tasks onto Apple Reminders.
As a project manager, I live in Microsoft Outlook. I’ve tried other software but the seamless integration between email and task management is invaluable. As an Inbox Zero bro, it’s critical to quickly flag emails to turn them into a future reminder, which lets me archive them into the appropriate project folder. I never use the Inbox proper for task management.
Whenever I input a task or flag an email, I always give it a date. Normally, I use the default options in Outlook: Today, Tomorrow, This Week (Saturday) Next week (Saturday). If it’s not urgent I’ll set the date as July 4 or December 25 to push it into far into the future.
When I look at my tasks in outlook, I can quickly see the immediate todos, this week’s tasks, what needs to be done in the next half month, and long term projects when I scroll to the bottom of the list. I also categorize the emails/tasks by project. By assigning colors, I can grok which projects are falling behind at a glance.
(When I was working on construction administration for my college building, I kept a separate project board on Asana, which was useful for coordinating with the architect, but I’ve found it unnecessary for smaller projects.)
For personal tasks I do something similar in Apple Reminders. The only difference is that I have more daily recurring tasks (exercise, bring lunch, floss, etc.) and I don’t add dates to long-term “nice to do someday” ideas.
Daily Spreadsheet— (I’ve stopped this practice)
The next step of my system is to use a daily spreadsheet. It started it to track of my hours, and then I added key metrics, growing into a baroque document (before becoming a simple time tracker again).My mornings start with a review of the AM checklist (noting metrics from the day before) and then a quick scan of email. Once completed, I’ll prioritize the tasks in MS Outlook and my day begins in earnest. I use spreadsheet to center myself, at the start of the day, after lunch, and at the end of the day — replaying the events and then calling a wrap, turning off my brain for the night.
Weekly and Monthly Review — (I’ve also stopped this practice, only keeping the 1-on-1’s with my boss on Monday mornings. This weekly meeting minimizes how often I interrupt him during the week and is just enough centering for my own work. Maybe I should restart a monthly sweep of my personal core values to become more contemplative about my efforts.)
On Friday mornings I take an hour to review the week. I run through Outlook, set up the weekly spreadsheet for next week, skim my personal core values statement, conduct a postmortem of the past week, and set the agenda for my weekly check in with my supervisor. Once that’s completed, I’ll pick up the remaining tasks for the week to end strong. Fridays are always nice in that they are dead quiet, allowing for focused concentration or an early out. For the last friday of the month I conduct a monthly postmortem where I reflect on the entire month.
Conclusion
As may be implied from what has survived the test of time, the most important parts are the immediate capture of tasks and the systematic curation of the work.
You might have noticed that I’ve been influenced by David Allen’s Getting Things Done fan. If so, please also note that that I’ve dispensed with all of the complexity of his system beyond his heavy emphasis on immediate capture. Indeed, I jettisoned most of my own complex superstructure over the years.
Designing systems are hard. Things look good on paper, but they rarely survive the long passage of time. But what does survive must be rigidly followed. You must be absolute on your system, otherwise you won’t trust it and will totally fall apart.
Good luck handling your chaos!
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For giggles here is the old Review Checklist in my “Core Values Document” (that I don’t use anymore)
Moment
Immediate Capture – notebook to outlook/reminders
Stop and Systematize whenever there is grit
Daily
Morning Evaluation (incl email scan)
Morning Contact
Morning Email Scan – but do focused work
Post Lunch pondering (if not before lunch)
Post Lunch Email purge
Evening Evaluation
Let myself relax at night, but avoid youtube rabbit hole
Weekly
Set up the next week
Clean Outlook Tasks
Clean Email / Calendar
Open the Weekly Folder
Skim this Core Values Document
Fill Out Weekly Review
Set up Weekly Spreadsheet for next week (do timesheets)
Sort the next week’s tasks
Clean Desk and Box’o’Death
Quarterly
Reset Goals
Revisit this Core values Document
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Some Links
Sherman Alexie finds the universal in the mundane. His poems and essays reveal our shared experience as strangers making our ways through a disorienting world. If I was ever tempted by a writer’s Faustian bargain, it would be for his eye and his voice.
Elissa grabs my heart and refuses to let go. There is a gentle power that courses through her Poor Man’s Feast. Not to be missed.
George writes a thoughtful essay about a painting in Art Every Day. I have no idea how he keeps it up, but each piece is insightful and provocative.
Rune stone, Korpbron, Juresta, Södermanland, Sweden, 1899, Erik Brate
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Thanks for reading this Owner PM’s Letter! Justus Pang, RA
When I was in private practice, I avoided thinking about cost and schedule. Not that I was wasteful with my clients’ money, but these matters weren’t my responsibility.
As an Owner’s PM, that’s flipped. Budgets and schedules are what I do. Half my job is to justify funding for these projects (and the other half is to spend the money).
This experience has made war really expensive.
An M1A2 Main Battle Tank costs $9 million. Four of those would build a new 67,000 square feet school of education building that took five years of my life.
It costs $44,000 per hour to fly an F-35. That’s what I paid to demolish a kitchen to create an activity area for disabled residents.
Let’s not even think of all the hours of training for each soldier and the years of productivity that are erased with each well placed bullet.
War is doubly expensive when we factor in the opportunity cost of what hasn’t been built with these funds.
Triply so when we think of the destruction. Even a just war doesn’t negate the wanton waste of such a calamity.
And then we’ll have to rebuild it — if we get that chance.
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Some Links
Last year, I stumbled across Bobby Timmons due to his brilliant Christmas album Holiday Soul. I recently discovered his awesome album This Here is Bobby Timmons. His life ended much too early, but he left us with some great music.
Nadia Gerassimenko writes an eclectic smorgasbord of essays, fiction, poetry, and guest posts that pulls from a wide field of influences including pop, horror, and video games. It’s always a pleasure to read, Her recent story “Siren with a soft sign” is a haunting story of a woman transforming into a flower bed.
I first met Debbie Ridpath Ohi elsewhere, but when she had Inkgirl I knew that Substack’s new “Notes” social media platform had a place for me. Her posts are always insightful, and her occasional long essays about her experience as an illustrator are applicable to anyone who starting (or continuing) a new endeavor.
Before the shutdowns started three years ago, my wife watched COVID march towards our shores while our nation reacted in slow motion. Coincidentally, my in-law’s tenants gave up their lease, so I moved into the vacant house.
I spent a few months as a bachelor, waiting for America to shut down and then finishing an intensive period of budgeting site visits before reuniting with my family.
Having a spare house to exile oneself was the height of privilege, but that didn’t make it any easier.
Even though my boss took a relaxed approach to the insanity (he started Doordashing to break up the monotony), he went out of his way to ask how I was doing. He checked in to ask how I was doing with the self imposed separation from my family.
That meant the world to me, he understood our concerns and treated it with respect. I vividly remember walking in my hallway looking at the setting sunlight through the blinds while telling him that it wasn’t easy.
It’s amazing how a short sincere conversation left such a lasting impression.
As OPM’s we have a similar opportunity with our project teams. Of course, this is not a cheap tactic for building rapport. People are much too sharp for that. A long term relationship takes investment. Sometimes a relationship is just a transaction. That’s ok, as long as they execute on their deliverables.
But if as someone who cares deeply about your work, you’ll connect with certain individuals along the way. When you do, take that risk. Ask that question. Develop that relationship. Don’t waste a precious opportunity to be meet another person in our one wild and precious life.
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Some Links
This documentary of the making of Wootz Damascus Steel is worth all fifty minutes. It’s a great study in metallurgy, starting with iron ore and ending with a piece of polished steel.
Klangphonics is a live techno trio with a fun retro vibe. I really enjoyed their shorts with unique instruments, such as a vacuum and spray bottle.
Erik Young wrote a powerful essay “I Have Long Walked By Your Side” from his experience as a chaplain about living with the knowledge of death. It will be our reality and we live better if we hold it close as a companion.
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While searching for a photo, I came across this photo of this beauty on a biplane. Wikipedia fills in the blanks: “Hélène Dutrieu (10 July 1877 – 26 June 1961), was a Belgian cycling world champion, stunt cyclist, stunt motorcyclist, automobile racer, stunt driver, pioneer pilot, wartime ambulance driver, and director of a military hospital.“
When I joined the Division, I was assigned an office that was so large that I brought in a spare table from home for extra desk surface. It was a great setup for reviewing the three university projects that I was managing.
Then the pandemic hit. I grabbed a laptop and went home.
I quickly learned to mark up PDFs in Bluebeam. It turned out to be easier than paper. Review on screen, make notes as I go, and email the the PDF back to the architect. No more long write-ups for comment letters!
A couple of years later, I discovered the Markup List feature. Now the computer will automatically compile a letter from my markups!
The default setting creates a new PDF file, but “append and hyperlink to current pdf” will add the comment summary as new pages to the back of the PDF.
I request written responses from my architect, so appending the summary gives them an option to respond in the body of the PDF or on the centralized list. I’ve tried moving the summary to the front of the PDF, but it messes with the hyperlinks, so I just leave them in the back.
I use a yellow pen to highlight things as I go, marking what’s been reviewed. My actual comments have a red outline. Before processing the summary, I filter comments by color, hiding the yellow items.
Architectural Drawing sets often have custom names for the pages, which leads to odd results when sorting by Page (General sheets end up after Electrical!) The fix is is to sort comments by Color. The markups will follow the order they appear in the PDF file.
Pull Up the Markup List.Sort the comments by page (or color if the pages have custom names). Filter out comments you don’t want to be included on the list. Then create the PDF Summary.Click on the Append and Hyperlink option to the process.
Bluebeam is a powerful program. But like the rest of tech world, the next evolution is to collaborate on shared markups in the cloud. I’ve talked to architects about their experiments in this direction and I hope to explore it with the next round of projects.
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Some Links
This has been a technical OPM letter, so here are three fun newsletters that publish on daily schedule.
Weirdo Poetry is a daily haiku webcomic. That alone would be a fun pairing, but Jason McBride also adds a short contemplative letter to each post. It’s a rich three course meal to start the day.
The Heron Dance Art Journal pairs a watercolor with inspirational quotes from luminaries through the ages. Follow the link embedded in the newsletter to find extended notes and additional quotes. The art is always ethereal, an aptly named pause for beauty.
Erica Drayton publishes a story with exactly 100-words) in her 100 Words Daily. These drabbles are always delightful and often a touch horrifying.
On Taking Pictures went on hiatus for a few years, but they recently returned to bless us on a sporadic basis, whenever the guys feel like turning on their microphones together.
In the meantime, Jeffery hosts several podcasts and writes an introspective newsletter. Iterations consistently make me ponder my own life, choices, and art.
I wrote this in August of 2021, on what should have been the first day of instruction in my new Education Academic Building at Nevada State College.
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I walked onsite to address an issue that popped up in the new building. I wondered if first day of school would bring a legion of students sharing the latest version of the newest germs.
It was dead quiet. Just like the last eighteen months.
Ain’t that how life messes with our dreams? We imagine a blaze of glory.
We get a puff and a fizz.
Next time won’t be a pandemic, but it’ll be something. Moments are never pristine in real life.
But if the work was done right, Maybe that imperfect flash might leave a lasting mark.
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Following my music theme from the past couple of OPM letters, I just came across this Bandcamp Weekly show. It’s exactly what I consider “cultured” music — eclectic, jazzy, world-ish, safely edgy. I feel seen. The girl calls it “restaurant music”.
Surfing on Bandcamp, I stumbled across Mille Morceau which has a surreal, architectural album cover. As I stared at it, I suddenly felt destabilized. Is this AI? The ground fell out from under me. It was a physical reaction even though I was just lying in bed. I need to explore this further.
I’ve been excited to read the newsletter 23 Sherwood Drive every day. Jo Paoletti collects journal notes over the years, interspersing it with commentary. As I slide past middle age, I treasure reading the reflections of someone who is a few steps ahead of me. It’s voyeuristic and edifying.
Two years ago, a third of Basecamp (now 37signals) quit after the owners suddenly shut down the DEI committee and banned all political talk on their internal chat. I’m certain that number was inflated because they offered a generous separation package of up to six month’s pay to those who quit.
I’m not going to argue the merits of those decisions, but there are three lessons from the drama worth highlighting. Two lessons relate to our craft as Owner Project Managers, the third is a question that I ponder whenever I think about my career.
Communication
The owners should not have announced the policy change via a blog post. The staff would have objected to the policy change no matter how it was delivered, but it sure made things worse. The ham handed delivery approach blew any chance at keeping the benefit of doubt within the team.
As an OPM, I’ve had three calls with firm principals to discuss concerns about their teams’ performances. Each of those old heads knew how to play the game — I felt amazing after each of those calls. Smooth motherfuckers.
The Basecamp owners forgot that they owe the same charm towards their employees when instituting big, unpopular changes. An employee serves at the pleasure of the employer, but they can walk. The transaction cuts both ways.
Your farts *do* stink
As owners it’s easy to forget that people have to act like they enjoy your presence. They respond quicker and laugh harder at your jokes when you’re their cashflow. The mass exodus shows that Basecamp wasn’t as utopian or attractive as their owners thought it was; their business books were more aspirational than descriptive.
I’ve seen this dynamic as an employee. The boss deludes themselves into believing their place is more than a job. Mission—Family—Culture—Movement—etc. Let’s get real, a company is the owners’ playground, no matter what they call it. That’s the privilege they purchase when those checks clear every other Friday.
Strip away the collective fiction and you might find out that you aren’t actually best buds, especially after offering them three to six months wages to walk away.
Would you quit for half a year’s cash?
I love my job and I love my employer. But I got options as a skilled professional in a good economy.
Would I take the deal? In my current place, I don’t think so. I’m too far from retirement and I enjoy my colleagues too much. But could I live with dragging myself to the office for the next half year, knowing it was pro bono? What if my favorite coworkers quit?
That’s where meaning kicks in. It’s one thing to grab a fat check. But what next? I still have to work. Where? At a place where I might not enjoy the company? It’s been a privilege to serve my fellow citizens. Do I have the patience to serve pushy private clients?
Of course, we’re not tech workers so it’s all hypothetical (I’m not winning the lottery either). But fantasy challenges our assumptions about daily life. It pushes us through a series of “why’s”. Why do we work? Why did we chose this specific employer, this profession? Why do we stay? Why are we still in this game?
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Some Links
I’ve always been fond of electronica, starting with .mod files on the 16-bit Sound Blaster on our 386. I listened to Glitch Mob’s Drink the Sea on repeat while doing mad overtime in Houston and I’ve gone through a few other electronica phases in the past decade at Vegas.
Lately I’ve been working so hard that I can only listen to music with a strong beat. Last week, I finally stumbled across the term “Glitch Hop” on the title card to Defqwop’s Heart Afire.
Once I found a name, I dug into google. Here’s an hour long mix by Xefox, overview by last.fm, and a brief primer on Bandcamp. This music isn’t as highbrow as last week’s discovery of Ahmad Jamal, but it’s enough off the beaten path to be worth sharing.
Dream Big is a modern industry propaganda film with the all-American narration of Jeff Bridges, sponsored by the American Society of Civil Engineers.
It highlights the altruistic sides of the engineering profession — building a bridge in rural Haiti, earthquake analysis in Nepal, and teaching robotics to disadvantaged children. It didn’t convince my daughter to enter the industry, but I enjoyed the heartwarming reminder of why I got into this business.
We joined this profession for a good job, but we didn’t just stay for a tidy nest egg. We change physical reality — we walk over, under, and into our projects. Other professions can’t provide such tangible results.
Taken one step further, this is why I joined the government. There’s great psychic value in knowing that my projects will directly benefit the public. All real estate development involves spreadsheets, but my numbers come directly from the people to serve the people.
It’s an awesome responsibility to be employed by my fellow citizens to spend their tax dollars. And it’s damn satisfying to hand them a properly constructed building, on budget and on time.
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Jazz pianist Ahmad Jamal passed away at 92 in mid-April. Ted Gioia celebrated his work with a great essay.
I’m slowly borrowing Jamal’s albums on Hoopla, one week at a time (I’m currently enjoying Volume IV which has a great cover). Each of album so far has had a moment that sent tingles down my spine — 3 for 3 is a great hit rate!
Of the three so far, my favorite is The Awakening, which was sampled by many hip hop artists (as outlined in this blog post and video). It’s easily a classic alongside Waltz for Debby and Brilliant Corners.
