How often have been allotted to or undertaken a big project, only to become overwhelmed at the sheer scope of effort and time required? If this is the case you are not alone – handling long-term, sizeable projects is a challenging prospect, even for those experienced at it. And then consider juggling 3 or 4 or maybe 5 or more at a time – for many of us the mere thought of it actually is frightening.
And yet, as you look around your workplace, you can spot someone that appears to prosper on doing it and really does it phenomenally well. And whilst that person may not appear to be any more smart or industrious than you are, for some reason they embrace the challenge whilst you back away from it.
The underlying difference between yourself and that person is just this – they know and practice a particularly simply idea – Task Management.
With no regard for the particular scope of work concerned or the time frame to completion, every project can be broken down into smaller, simply managed tasks that are readily finished over the short-term. As each task is finished, it contributes towards the completion of the project itself, in due time.
More frequently than not, each task itself can then be broken down into a fixed schedule, allowing you to gradually and doggedly work at it over a number of days or weeks. Relying on the type of task, it may be feasible to work on several tasks at the same time, by spending a comparatively little period of time on each, each day.
The slogans of Task Management are diligence and consistency, but tempered with pliability. A given task may wish to be paused if it is dependent on the completion of another task or a sudden issue presents itself. With flexible scheduling and a willingness to conform to these unforeseen barriers, the project itself will continue while you explore options to deal with them.
Those whom excel at project management do so because they are able work in the kind of way that each day they make some degree progress on a number of of the tasks concerned. This will mean spending as little as ten or fifteen mins every day or up to an hour on each task. At different milestones in the project, the quantity of time expended every day will unavoidably change.
It is for this very reason that project executives are typically in a position to take on multiple projects concurrently and not become stressed over their workload. Handling many projects at once essentially breaks up the monotony of working on one single thing at any given time. It gives a way for you to step back from each project for a short while and then resume it the following day with a fresh viewpoint.
Whilst we will never lose sight of the project itself, by targeting Task Management, careful scheduling and consistency in how we approach our work, we will be able to simply increase our Private Productivity without unduly maddening ourselves or becoming concerned about our workload.
