Web designers that freelance or work at small companies usually have a myriad of distractions that take away from projects. Whether it’s a client technical support issue or billing management, it seems as if everything in the world is aligned against us. By the end of the day we look at our project schedule and realize that very little got done.
This seems to be the price we pay for the freedom of doing things our way. Fortunately, it’s an easy issue to overcome. I’ve outlined below proven ways to dedicate more quality time with your projects without sacrificing the other parts of your business. They’re proven because I’ve implemented them with success and am confident you can too.
For the past couple of weeks I’ve been working the midnight oil on a new site. Let’s start off with the name of it. Project Palace was literally the first domain I searched for in GoDaddy. I don’t know why I chose the word “palace” but it was available and I grabbed it.
So I had a name and then I had an idea (doesn’t it always work in that order?). I wanted to create a site that aggregated the best articles and blog posts on project management for web design and development. I see a severe lack of emphasis in this area. It seems as if every post in the design world is geared toward tutorials or specific design techniques.
With that in mind, I set about creating Project Palace for web designers and project managers who want to hone in on their project management skills.
The type of articles on Project Palace, which are currently handpicked by me from select sources, will range from specific project management techniques to more general self management articles. It will not become another generic freelancing or tutorial site, I promise you that.
New posts are now up on Project Palace and the gates are open. Please feel free to check it out, and please do subscribe to the RSS feed. And of course, if you have articles you want to feature on Project Palace, use the “Submit Article” link in the footer. There’s a lot of growth potential with this, so come back and check for daily and weekly updates.
Visit Project Palace
I’ve written in the past about planning effective web design milestones, so now I want to delve into the actual elements that make up a good milestone. Milestones should be the meat of your project process for any web design or development engagement. They constitute your game plan and provide a clear roadmap for you and your client.
Since milestones are very much like goals, they should follow the SMART routine: Specific, Measureable, Attainable, Relevant and Timely. I’ll discuss how you can apply SMART plus five other traits to your milestones to make them actionable and effective.
If you’re like me, each new web design project looks like a fresh adventure to spin your creative wheels on. There are new challenges and ideas that get the mind buzzing. Sadly, this momentary bliss falls apart as I start thinking about everything it’s going to take to finish the project. My mind stops buzzing and goes into shut down mode. All of a sudden, I don’t even want to look at the project anymore.
That may be a bit of an exaggeration, but projects do introduce a bit of stress and worry. This can lead us to procrastination, unhappiness and reduced quality in our output.
Fortunately, all of those things are avoidable and I’m going to explain how.
2009 was a great year in which I accomplished more than any other year before. However, the goal of this post is not to recount past achievements. Instead, I want to focus on what I did wrong in 2009 so that not only can I plan for my own changes in 2010, but hopefully help others avoid the mistakes I made as well.
Here are some topics to keep your weekend busy:
Time is a precious commodity. There’s a finite amount of it, and not all time is treated equally. We may have some blocks of time that are more productive than others. Furthermore, present time is more valuable than future time (past time is also valuable, which I’ll get to in a minute). If we have to finish a project immediately, you put a bigger weight on the time you have available now as opposed to the time you will have available later.
With that in mind, we should give time the respect it deserves. We must track and analyze what time is being allocated for what, and how wisely it’s being used.
This is where time tracking comes into play. Using a tool such as Harvest, you can record the time you’re spending on a project during or after the activity. This allows you to keep an accurate log of your time expenditures.
What’s cool about tools like Harvest is that as you accrue a lengthy log of time spent, you can look back and analyze your efficiency. Are you spending the most time on projects right before major deadlines? If so, you might be procrastinating too much. Or, are you spending way too much time on unimportant project tasks? That may highlight a need to delegate.
Analyzing your past time is a very critical activity. If you were a track runner, you’d want to keep a log of your mile times, right? Otherwise, how would you track your improvements? The same goes for project management. Identify what you may be doing wrong, aim to improve, evaluate and then repeat.
For those who aren’t traveling over the holidays this season, this time represents a rare opportunity to get things done. Clients leave town, email is at a minimum and people don’t really expect much to get done.
Use this precious holiday time to get some critical project activities taken care of.
Batch processing is the act of organizing project tasks and activities into time chunks that you can knock out one at a time. This isn’t a new concept and you’ve likely heard about it before.
How can we more effectively implement batch processing for our projects? Here are a few key pointers to keep you on track and make sure those projects get done.
- Determine what times of the day you think you’ll be most effective. This means the times you believe you’ll be most alert, focused and distraction-free. Use these times as your “batch zones” to start processing.
- During your batch zones, close off any potentially distracting applications and devices. Shut down email, close Twitter and set your phone to silent.
- Plan your day ahead of batch zones. Figure out which projects need the most attention. That way you won’t be wasting your batch zones trying to find something to work on.
- Set mini-goals for your batch zones. Instead of just planning to work straight for three hours on a project, layout specifically what you want to accomplish. With an end in sight, batch processing will be more manageable.
- Organize your materials and notes before your batch zones. Every moment you’re batch processing should be dedicated toward project work.
Have any batch processing tips of your own? Feel free to share in the comments section.
Here’s a short roundup of some great articles and posts to keep your mind occupied this weekend.
