Is It Really A Project?

There is an obsession with allocating every task we receive to a project. Or if we don’t have an existing project to turn it into a project.

The reality is only some of the tasks you get are projects. Some tasks will be related to existing projects, but for the most part, many of these tasks can be completed within a few days. So, for example, if your sales director asked you to compile a sales report for your team over the last ten months, while it might take you five or six hours to assemble and there may be more than one step, is it really a project?

To complete this task, you need four or five hours to sit down and compile the report.

Breaking a task like this down into smaller tasks will not make completing the job any easier or faster. If anything, it will do the opposite.

A better approach to this is to look at your calendar and find a five-hour block of time or two consecutive days when you can allocate three hours each day to complete the task.

This problem of turning everything into a project and putting these projects into our task managers comes from a misreading of David Allen’s book, Getting Things Done (GTD).

GTD is all about creating lists around contexts, not projects. Contexts could be @computer, @phone, @home, @office etc. you would then organise your tasks into these contexts. For instance, if you have several calls, these would be collected in your @phone list. Or if you need to clean your home office, you would put that task in your @home list.

David Allen defines a project as anything requiring two or more steps. In this scenario, you would create a project folder and put all the project details into that folder. Traditionally, this would be a file folder which would then be stored in a filing cabinet near your desk. These days, we would create a folder in our notes app for the specific project.

These project folders would then be reviewed weekly, and any “next actions” (tasks) would be moved to the relevant context in our task managers.

This approach takes a lot of time to review everything, and most people never do an adequate weekly review. If you do not consistently do your weekly review, everything will fall apart, and GTD will not work.

Here we come back to turning everything into a project. If this is what you try to do, and yet you are not completing a full weekly review, things will fall apart rapidly.

This is why we want to set some strict criteria for a project. For me, a project will take more than two weeks to complete and involve multiple parts. For example, if I were to create a new online course, I would consider this a project.

My first step is to plan out the project inside my notes app. For an online course, I need an outline, recorded videos, edited videos, a description of the course and a marketing plan. That’s five distinct parts. The project would then be broken down in this way:

task: Create outline for new course.

calendar: Record videos, edit videos

Task: Write course description

task: upload videos to Learning Centre

Calendar: Launch online course

In total, for a six-week “project”, I will have three tasks and two calendar events.

If you were a manager and were required to complete your employee’s annual performance review, would this be a project? Again, I would argue no, it’s not a project.

First, completing your employees’ annual performance reviews is a part of your job and therefore comes under your core work. All you need to do is schedule meetings with your team and set aside time to write the reviews. For something like this, your calendar will be the driver of the task.

There’s nothing complex here because it is something you do every year. So you already know how to do it. All you need to know is when the reviews need to be submitted, and you can then work backwards to fit in the meetings with your team and have sufficient time to write the reviews.

Turning everything into projects adds complexity and wastes time that could be spent getting on and doing the work. Most of the things you are required to do will not be a project. Most of these tasks only require an adequate amount of time to complete, which means all you need is your calendar open to block out the required time you need to complete the task.

Turning everything into a project is why most people feel overwhelmed and stressed out. They focus on the number of things they have to do rather than looking at the available time and what they could do in that time.

I have around twelve hours each day to complete my work. So the only decision I need to make each day is what I will use that time doing. Today, it’s writing. Tomorrow I will be in front of the camera, and Wednesday, I will be editing videos.

I have two hours blocked out for communications and admin each day, so I know I have time to deal with my email and messages and any admin that may come up. My task manager will tell me what needs to be done in these categories daily.

So, stop treating everything as a project and focus on what you can complete daily. Those reports and performance reviews will get done only if you allocate time for getting them done rather than wasting precious time organising project lists.

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