One of the most useful things I have learned to do over the course of my professional career is to organize project notes. Not only does this allow me to tell you where the status of any piece of my work is at a given point, but it also allows me to revisit the items when questions arise after the work is completed.These days I use a Bullet Journal. I also have used OneNote, Evernote, and a personal wiki to do the same thing. I believe that this general system can be used no matter how you track it.
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I'm going through a rough patch in my life right now, and I know that I can't keep up with everything. Unlike the past when this has happened, I am asking for help, offloading what I can, and letting some projects go dormant. So how do you know what to let go of, even temporarily?
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Our brains, the Ziegarnik effect reminds us, focus on the open loops that have yet to be completed. Physical clutter can often hide open loops. Today we look at how to figure out if your clutter is hiding open loops and what to do about it.
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Have you ever finished a project and realized that much of what you did didn’t need to be done? You can avoid this situation by learning to find your minimum viable result. Today we will look at this software development concept and how it can save you time and energy on all of your projects.
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One of the most powerful things about Gmail is that you can add a “+tag” to your email address, turning your single email address into an infinite amount of addresses. These modified plus addresses can then be used to filter email with great precision.Microsoft finally is getting on board with this, setting the Plus addressing as a default as of April 22, 2022. It can still be overridden by system administrators, but hopefully most people will take the default.
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When you have too many things in a backlog and keep adding to it, something will eventually give. We don’t have infinite time and attention, and we can’t keep expecting that we can add to a backlog infinitely. Today we look at 5 essential questions for reviewing your someday list.
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I'll let you in on a little secret: I'm not always productive.
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Back in 2008 I was suddenly laid off from my job. My client canceled all contracts in the space of an afternoon, and my own company, which I had been with for 12 years, laid me off via email the next morning.After years of being in an office, I was suddenly at loose ends. My daughter was in first grade, and I wasn't sure what I would do next. I wanted to take my time to find the right job, but otherwise I didn't know.
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Not all projects are created equal. Yet many of us routinely pile things onto our already over-full plates without stopping to consider if the project needs to be done at all, or if you are the best person to do it.And just because we are all individuals, each person must have individual standards about if a project is worth doing. Here are two ways that I look at projects:
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Have you ever gotten so far behind in something that it would be easier to start over than to catch up? Sometimes you just have to cut your losses and start over.I recently realized I had a few hundred podcasts to listen to, and the list was growing bigger each week. It wasn't that I didn't enjoy them, I just hadn't made time to listen for the past few months.I knew I would never get through the backlog, and I would fall further and further behind. It was time for drastic action.
