Effective Monday: Taking Projects Day by Day

When we look at projects from a bird’s eye view, it can be a stressful revelation. We see all of the milestones, actions, communication and deliverables that must occur in order to get things done.

In my experience, and I’m certain in the experience of many others, this can cause us to shut down mentally and procrastinate. Oftentimes, this stress can result in a lack of confidence, exhaustion, helplessness and a host of other negative feelings.

How can we get over this hump and become more effective with our projects? My solution is to plan each day into manageable chunks. Every morning, I’ll pull out my notepad, take the cap off my pen and start writing out what I need to accomplish for the day. At first, I found myself just regurgitating all of my projects, but I soon learned to write down only things I could feasibly accomplish in one to three hours.

Time is an essential component to this activity because we’re all limited to a fixed amount of it each day. If you write down too many project tasks, that feeling of being overwhelmed will return. If you don’t write down enough, you’ll feel as if you aren’t doing enough. Plan each specific project item by listing out how much time you think it’ll take and then commit to it.

Here’s a sample of my project and client plan for the day:

Projects:

• New Blog Post – 45 minutes
• Client A Development Work – 2 hours
• Client B Development Work – 2 hours
• Client C Design Work – 1 hour
• Client D Design Work – 2-3 hours

To-Do Items:

• Review items from accountant
• Review Client E update requests
• Review Client F update requests
• Review Client G update requests
• Review weekly notes