The To-do list
It’s a new week and there is that to-do list staring me down again. I’ve done a fantastic job of breaking it down into categories and further down into tasks so that I actually have some action items. I’ve put times and deadlines and I’ve even numbered them in order of importance. I look at my list of 52 things and say to myself ‘I’ll do it this week. I’ll cross everything off of my list.’
Somewhere between item number 23 and the 7th kid or household emergency that week, I start to realize that it’s not going to happen this week… again. I’m not going to cross everything off of my list and the projects that have been crawling along for weeks are going to show up on my to-do list again next week.
Day to Day Multitasking
There’s a myth that I’ve had a really hard time letting go of, and that is that I can multitask my way through all of my projects. There are two types of multitasking. The first is multitasking in the moment. It the more “zoomed-in” form of multitasking with which we are most familiar. It looks something like setting that file to upload while we switch over and edit a few layers of a design, then switching back to copy the file url to paste it into the css document and setting that to upload and then picking up the dirty plate and mug from yesterday’s working breakfast and bringing them downstairs to drop off at the sink on the way to picking up today’s coffee and working breakfast and briefly checking the food you’ve started in the crock-pot before running back upstairs to answer an email while you listen to an inspiring podcast. I’m not so worried about this type of multitasking.
Project Multitasking
There is a second type of multitasking that I am more worried about. It is a more zoomed out version of multitasking and it looks like having 2 client projects, 3 personal projects, 2 pro-bono projects, 2 blogs, a handful of new business ideas, a struggling dream, and a dozen other personal commitments and the ALL have #1 priority items that need to be completed THIS WEEK.
What I’ve hoped would be true is that if I could jump around to different projects at the right frequency, I could make small progress on each one. Over time it would add up to big progress. As the weeks wore on, instead of feeling like I’ve gotten a lot of work done, all I could see is a to-do list filled with unfinished projects and rapidly approaching deadlines.
My Brain, the Slow Computer
I don’t know if everyone has this problem. I’m sure there are people out there who are really great at juggling multiple projects, but I’m definitely not one of them. My brain is kinda like a computer… I can run multiple programs at once, but each time I open a new program, they all slow down just a little bit. If I have too many open, eventually some program gets stuck or crashes altogether. But even if I had a super fast processor and tons of memory, having more than one program open at a time still slows the machine down even ever so slightly.
Anomalies
In addition to my personal difficulty managing multiple projects there are also five little anomalies (my boys), six if you include my wife, who at any given moment throughout the week could obliterate any margin I’ve built for myself and derail my plans. Last week I had to spend 2 hours cleaning up water from an overfilled toilet, courtesy of one of my two-year-old twins. I checked back and that was definitely not on my list.
The conclusion I’ve come to, not only for myself, but even for the person who has more mental bandwidth and more predictable circumstances, is that project multitasking doesn’t work. We do our best work when we are focusing on one thing at a time. I want to encourage you to take some practical steps toward identifying which project to focus on, and how to ensure that while you are focusing on one, the others don’t get lost. Treat your projects like debt.
Treat Your Projects Like Debt
Regardless of how you feel about debt, many of us have carried debt and had to deal with it at one time or another. When you are dealing with debt and which debts to pay off first, you’ve got to consider things like interest rates and payment amounts, etc. For example, let’s say I’ve got a car payment, a credit card balance and a hospital bill. Assuming I am still making minimum payments on each and I have extra money to pay something off, it probably makes the most sense to pay off the credit card balance first because it has the highest interest rate, the car second and the hospital bill last. But, if the hospital bill is only a few hundred dollars, it might be worth taking care of just to get it off of my mind.
Assigning Values
In the same way, we can size up our projects and approach them based on which has the highest “interest rate” or “balance”. For example, a client project probably has a higher interest rate than a personal project because not “paying off” that bill could cost you in your brand perception, level of trust, or even actual dollars and cents. Below are three values you can assign to help you determine which projects to pay off first:
1. Minimum Payment
On a piece of paper, write out a list of the projects you’ve got going. Find out what the “minimum payment” is on each of your projects. What is the least amount of time you can afford to spend on each project without any of them going into default? One way you can determine this is by dividing the amount of time it will take to complete the project by the number of working days between now and the “complete by” date. Once you’ve done that for each item, you might find that even making the minimum payment on all of your tasks puts you way over on your time. This is a good time to decide whether or not you need to let a project default. Maybe you need to push back the due date or just remove the project altogether for now.
2. Interest Rate
Number your projects in order of interest. Which one’s hold the highest consequences if not finished by the completion date? Typically, client projects, or projects for which you’ve made a big public commitment have the highest interest rates, whereas personal projects, particularly ones you’ve not made public, have relatively low interest rates. However, don’t underestimate the interest value of personal projects that you are extremely passionate about.
3. Balance
Write down the number of hours it will take to complete each of your projects. It may be that you have a really “low balance” project that, though it does not have as high of an “interest rate” as others, you could knock out really quickly. There is profound value in finishing something. Completing a project fuels your efforts for the next project, and the next project, and the next.
I think we have a tendency to be more optimistic about how many things we are capable of juggling and how quickly we can get those things done. The simple act of writing down these values and assigning some real numbers to our projects, at the very least, helps us to be more realistic about what we can and cannot accomplish, and at best, will establish within us a healthy rhythm of paying off “project debt” and help us to work through our project list faster, and more efficiently.