If you are like most people that I know you have TONS going on. Normal day to day operation work, normal family routine tasks like making dinner, volunteer work that you do, and of course projects! A project is defined as something that is not achieved by one to-do, and is pushing the borders of your growth and development. It is also finite, meaning it will be something that gets accomplished and not ongoing. When we do new project based work, either alone or with another person or team, we get to learn, and progress ourselves and the organization/family unit.
An example of a personal project I am engaged in right now is painting every room in the house. Obviously, this takes time and is not achieved in one to-do. There is a lot of work that goes into it: estimating the time allotment, getting the supplies I need, doing the work, touch-up, and clean-up. Rinse and repeat for each room. An example of a professional project that I am engaged in is creating a drumming business, with an online subscription fee for lessons. To make this happen I need to get the space, move into the space, get microphones and lighting, learn editing software, tune my drums, do the lessons, and do marketing! So much. But it’s worth it. Projects should be things that augment your life, business, or others.
What projects are you engaged in? It’s helpful to assess what you are doing currently and look into the future to see what you want to bring into being. Sometimes projects are given to you by others, like a manager. Once you assess your projects, how do you like them? Are you engaged? Are you drained? Do you really want to do them? Why or why not? We need to be able to find the sweet spot of just enough extra projects to propel us into our greatness, into our potential.
Emotions are a great radar system for us as we assess our projects, or create them. Do we feel drained, engaged, confused, overwhelmed? These feelings have knowledge packed into them, like a message in a bottle. Negative feelings like confusion and anxiety can lead us into avoidance and procrastination. When we really don’t want to do the projects we need to do, it can lead us to stagnate. Frustration and overwhelm can lead to being scattered, not focused because there is just too much to do. Of course engaged feelings lead to action and fruition. Of course, we don’t have a crystal ball, and we don’t know if we will be successful. But it’s a worthy pursuit.
If you are feeling disengaged from your work project for instance, you can talk to your manager about it. Maybe you don’t have the strengths, time, or skills for it. By communicating, maybe you can offload some or all of the project, or take on a different one more in line with your desires and talents. Unfortunately, when we work for others we sometimes just need to buckle down and get it done. I don’t like research projects, but sometimes I just need to do it. But, this is only a small percentage of the time. Overall the projects I am engaged in are leading me into positive feelings and fulfillment.
When you do find the sweet spot of what projects, and how many, you need to be able to organize them and take consistent action over time to get them accomplished. There are elaborate software options out there. For me I have all my projects on one page, and I look at them every day to see what I can be doing today or to set the stage for a future day this week or next week. I create concrete action steps that I can sink my teeth into, and then I schedule them in my iPhone. Every day I scan the list, hone in on my to-do’s, and assess at the end of the day if I did them, and how it went. Because projects take time, and can lead to unforeseen to-do’s and barriers, we need to be diligent somehow to track everything.
