An Old Fashioned Way of Project Management to Get More Done in Life, with Pen and Paper
Life is short. I always have too many things on my to do list. For example, a regular weekend comes, I want to play guitar, read books, go shopping, clean the house, do the laundry, watch some movies, cook good dinner, meet with friends and write blogs. At Sunday night, I get frustrated because only the must-do part has been accomplished. Time runs so fast!
When I take a closer look at how I spent my time, I figured out that there is a black hole. Either I watch online videos for a bunch of hours or surf online aimlessly, letting time passing by. I want to have more done and have a fulfilled life. So I turned to project management.
There are so many professional project management tools. I tried some app and web tutoring for project management. The most efficient and simple way to manage my side projects is the old fashioned way with a pen and a piece of paper. If I put my goals on app of my phone, most likely I will never open the app because of so many distractions out there.
Most of the time my project involves one person, myself. I find out it is better to keep side projects no more than three. This week, I have two side projects: reading a book I newly bought and writing a blog. I wrote them down on two pieces sticky notes and stuck them on the inner cover of my mini-binder. For my accomplishments, I record the date and how many pages I read. It is old fashioned, but very efficient. I check my mini-binder regularly to record my mind, and my side projects are often on the first page there. I even got more other side projects done, even they are not listed. I took out our video cam and took a shot recording of our life, and also read a few pages of a Python book I newly borrowed from library. I spent less time wandering online and had a very nice weekend with my family.
Technology is smart and fancy. Sometimes I just need to call back the old fashioned way to simplify my life and get more done. For businesses, project management will be a more complicated story. At least, I have had a good start and I will keep on learning.
