Image via Wikipedia

Now that we have a diagnosis of too many projects, it is time to discuss remedying the problem.

Write your project list

To begin with, we will need to come up with a list of all our projects, similar to the one that I made in the diagnosis post. To be fair, here it is again for reference:

1. Programming a website from scratch;
2. Starting my career as a professional belly dance performer and instructor;
3. Continuing my web design business;
4. Writing on this blog;
5. Writing on my professional “Hey this is me” blog;
6. Opening a belly dance online store;
7. Planning my wedding, which is less than a month away;
8. Writing a book about starting a business;
9. Hunting for a job in Albuquerque and…;
10. Looking for a place to live in Albuquerque before…;
11. Moving to Albuquerque in order to keep on…;
12. Getting my college education.

Review your list

Now, some of these do not make a lot of sense in the context of project management. For example, I will continue my college education no matter what – that is one project I will not drop until it is complete.

Additionally, some of these become mini-projects when they are broken down. Looking for a place to move involves trying to get my credit score higher and putting together a nice references list. Getting a college education involves making money, which means finding a job, and finding scholarships, which involves a lot of things, including writing essays and participating in extracurricular activities.

Expand your list

So let’s take a look at all your projects. Break them down into a long list like this one:

• Find and join an extracurricular club or volunteer for an organization (for college).
• Write an amazing scholarship application essay (for college).
• Rewrite resume (for a job, for a place to live).
• Apply to about a thousand jobs (for a job, for a place to live).
• Check out credit report and correct errors (for a place to live).
• Pay down credit cards to increase credit score (for a place to live).
• Check in with client about website to design (to pay down credit cards, for a place to live).

Perhaps the most overlooked and yet most important part of this list is tacked on right at the end, where you tell yourself why you are doing what you are doing. It is important to productivity to be reminded what is supposed to be getting done, exactly, and also important to prioritizing, which is, conveniently, our next step.

Prioritize

The first major step to correcting a lack of time is to prioritize projects.

Find your context

What we want to do is figure out how we are going to prioritize. For example, a lot of my projects require the root of all evil: that is, money. So, it would be wise in this case to prioritize according to how much something will cost and how much money it will make. Blogging is, for the most part, free, but it costs a large investment of time, which is another commodity. If you have unlimited money, perhaps time would be a better solution. Or, if you are like me, and you lack money and want to use your time for the best return, perhaps breaking down the list by both would be wise.

Break it down

Now that we have chosen how to break everything down, it is time to actually do so. Every item on the project list should have a “cost” and a “return” next to it, if you have chosen a product that has such qualities – something like time, money, or energy.

My list looks something like this:

• Blogging – time intensive, little upfront return, medium return over time
• Writing on established sites – time intensive, some upfront return, little return over time
• Regular work – time varies, medium upfront and long-term returns
• Web design – time intensive, high upfront return, small long-term return

Your analysis may look completely different, but this is what I find works best for me.

Organize

The final step in prioritizing is to actually do so. Think about what you want to spend the most of in this situation. Do you want to dedicate a lot of time upfront for high long-term returns, or would you rather jump onto the bandwagon and plug away for somewhat similar returns over the course of a lifetime? Figure out which projects should make their ways higher up the list. But, do not do this all at once. Rather, think on a scale of 1 to 10 (the numbers are arbitrary) and assign a value to each project one at a time. This will help you to think in terms of the project, rather than relative to other projects. This is important for later.

Here’s my list:

• Blogging (8)
• Job (7)
• Writing on established website (2)
• Web design (7)

Analyze

As you can see from my list, blogging is my highest-ranked priority. This is because it provides reasonable returns over time, is almost free to do, and because it gives me  the most amount of joy. Although it takes a lot of effort, it will pay off in the long run.

What I ranked lowest was writing for an established website, such as Associated Content, because it does not provide a terribly high return, and I consider it somewhat soul-crushing.

In this case, ignoring all other possibilities for making money and successfully moving to Albuquerque, blogging looks like the best bet for my mental health. However, with such a short amount of time to earn a return on my time, perhaps a regular full-time job would be my best bet.

Putting it to work

So now that we have our projects prioritized, what do we do? It is time to select an item or a few items from our projects list which are most important to us and begin working on completing them. For example, moving to Albuquerque, continuing my college education, programming, and writing will be my handful of projects.

Additionally, it is important to select a chunk of time to dedicate to each project so that they will not become crossed and mixed together, which must be avoided at all costs.

For example, every few days, I review Craigslist postings for new jobs I could do in Albuquerque. Every day, I set aside about two hours for writing. I study at least twenty hours per week. I program with the rest of my free time, when I have the sanity for it.

After all this, I still usually have time to do other things, like planning my wedding or travel, and dancing. Because of all this, I consider my project management to be balanced and healthy.

What about you? Care to share your project list? Do you have to prioritize, or are you doing well enough managing everything at once?

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At one time, being successful meant relaxing on a beach in Cabo, tapping on a Blackberry to check Swiss bank accounts. These days, however, times have changed, and being successful tends to be equivalent to being busily working away at the top of a huge company. The more we have to do, it seems, the more successful we appear to be to others. I define success as being happy and at peace, however, so I decided to do a two-part series about how to tell if you have too many projects and how to remedy the situation.

How much is too much?

The first problem we need to tackle is defining how much is too much, in terms of project management. Some may prefer a number, but I prefer to express “too much” in relation to how much work and energy something takes and how much distress it causes.

As an example, I am currently juggling twelve major projects. I am:

1. Programming a website from scratch;
2. Starting my career as a professional belly dance performer and instructor;
3. Continuing my web design business;
4. Writing on this blog;
5. Writing on my professional “Hey this is me” blog;
6. Opening a belly dance online store;
7. Planning my wedding, which is less than a month away;
8. Writing a book about starting a business;
9. Hunting for a job in Albuquerque and…;
10. Looking for a place to live in Albuquerque before…;
11. Moving to Albuquerque in order to keep on…;
12. Getting my college education.

However, I can handle this many projects. It can be rough at times, but as long as I dedicate blocks of time to developing single projects and keep my to-do lists focused and organized, I am successful at doing everything.

Many people juggle this many projects – or even more – at once. It can be difficult to keep every ball up in the air at times, which is when problems begin to happen, things get neglected, and people feel forgotten and small. I define “too many” here as “causing detriment.”

So, if you feel a great pressure on your life from your many projects, it may be time to begin fixing the situation in order to have a more enjoyable experience. We only live once, so it is very important to have a good time the first time around.

Now that you have a diagnosis, it may be a good idea to read a remedy for having too many projects.

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The PCEO is a collection of 5 printable worksheets for goal tracking, task tracking, daily planning, planned versus unplanned tracking, and individual task tracking. (More about each after the jump.)

Shea came up with this amazing set of working because he didn’t have the ability to focus on moving his company forward:

[It] comes from the idea that a good CEO should focus primarily on those things that move the company forward; since I can’t afford to hire my own CEO, being able to print one out seemed like the next best thing! :-)

It’s about that simple to use PCEO: print, fill out, conquer.

Concrete Goals Tracker

The Concrete Goals Tracker worksheet is about “identifying what tangible things you can do that move you toward your goals.”

It was created for freelancers (Seah is a freelancer) to help track progress of goals on a week-by-week basis and ingrain a goal oriented mindset. Many people have adapted the worksheet to work with their specific goals.

On the worksheet’s post on Seah’s website, he lists several variations including a web-based task tracker based on the PCEO system.

Task Progress Tracker

The Task Progress Tracker worksheet is glorified to-do list that helps to motivate you to work on specific projects in an unstructured way.

It tracks tasks in fifteen minute intervals (with a grand total of four hours per task). It gives you a way to see exactly what work you’ve done on a task. It’s pretty glorifying that way.

Personally, I use the Task Progress Tracker for my daily to-do list in addition to my projects. At the end of the day, it feels really good looking at the form and seeing all the check marks and bubbles. My challenge—Shea’s as well—is getting that first bubble marked. After that, it’s a breeze.

Emergent Task Timing

The Emergent Task Timer worksheet is diagnostic timesheet that you write down what you do and track the amount of time you spent on it. In contrast to the Task Progress Tracker, you don’t have to plan out your tasks before you get to work… You just get to work.

Set a timer for 15 minutes and then get to work. Once the timer goes off, write down what you were doing and fill in the appropriate time bubble. Do that every fifteen minutes. Once you change tasks (or begin a significant subtask), write it down.

The worksheet goes on for 8 hours (there’s a 12 hour one for all you workaholics out there) in 15 minute intervals. At the end of the work day, you know exactly where your time has gone.

Shea did an excellent job at explaining how to analyze your Emergent Task Timer worksheet on the original blog post.

Task Order Up!

The Task Order Up worksheet focuses on individual tasks by “maintaining context and continuity.”

In the business world, these can be an invaluable tool for both the employee and the manager. The employee knows exactly when a task is due (and, at a glance, see all due dates) and what the manager expects out of the employee. The manager knows exactly what an employee has done, how long it took to work on it, and if the employee is being over or under worked.

Shea uses an Ex-cell Noteminder Check Rail to hold his Task Order Up worksheets. It’s a really ingenious way of holding these and helps you to get an idea of your (or your employee’s) workload.

Other PCEO Worksheets

This concludes what I refer to when I speak of the Printable CEO. However, there are four other worksheets in the series.

• Network Catch-O-Matic: This worksheet lists the steps to get to know someone. The six stages: being seen, talked with, exchanged information, planned to talk to again, followed up with, and currently collaborating.
• Emergent Task Planner: This worksheet helps you to somewhat structure your day and allocate time for tasks and other nuances (such a the plumber).
• Resource Task Quantizer and Resource Scheduler: This worksheet is somewhat like the Emergent Task Planner in that it allows you to structure your time and allocate time for your task, except this works on a week-by-week basis.
• Day Grid Balancer: This worksheet: This worksheet helps to balance your work week. “It’s really just a glorified to-do list, designed around the idea of noting when you’re doing the kind of things that you’d like to be doing every day.”

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