Make progress on several projects at once

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You read it everywhere: one project at a time is best. “Single-task,” don’t multitask! In reality, this advice is practically impossible to follow, both at work and outside it.

Besides, working on several projects at once is fun, especially when you can get results on each of them.

But how do you keep making progress on all your projects at once? Fortunately, with a little thought, it really is possible.

The foundation lies in how you organize your projects and make sure you work on them consistently.

“Delivering small pieces in short cycles and putting in consistent effort produces results.”

Of course, it’s also important not to take on too much.

Consistent effort

Progress depends on the amount of effort you put into something, whether it’s sport, work, health or projects outside your job.

Ideally, you do this daily. Even if it’s only half an hour or an hour, putting in that effort every day adds up quickly. Half an hour of work on something each day is still 3.5 hours a week. That’s 14 hours a month, almost two full working days!

Set some ground rules

The whole challenge, then, is how to easily allocate that half-hour, hour or other amount of time to a project or task, and actually use it. The more often you manage this, the better your projects go.

It becomes a cycle of:

  1. Define short tasks.

  2. Allocate time.

  3. Evaluate whether you spent that time.

  4. Adjust your strategy.

  5. Deliver.

Setting ground rules can help enormously. I have two projects alongside my day job as a programmer. I’m building an app and writing this blog.

I’ve set myself a few ground rules:

  1. On days when I work for my employer, I write for my blog in the morning and evening: before breakfast and after dinner.

  2. On days when I don’t work, I spend at least one two-hour block on my app.

  3. On Sundays, after my cycling training, I edit and publish the finished blog posts.

Rules like these help you evaluate whether a particular block in your day is suitable, in terms of distractions or energy.

The reason I don’t also program my own app in the evening is that it would take too much energy. I want some variety too!

With these rules, I know I’m putting consistent effort into my projects.

When drawing them up, it’s important to consider:

  1. What time do I have available?

  2. Do I have the energy for something at that time?

  3. Can I start quickly? What can I do to reduce the time it takes to get started?

  4. How likely is it that other things will interrupt or overrun? Consciously or unconsciously, those are your real priorities.

Time blocks

Once you’ve set ground rules, it helps to think about which time blocks will practically fit them. The rules need to be achievable too.

It’s best to reserve blocks of at least an hour. That makes it easier to gain momentum on your projects.

These could be blocks before work, after lunch or after exercise, for example.

Even with an office job, you can reserve time blocks: before or after the stand-up, before lunch or after lunch. There are all kinds of points you can treat as the start of a piece of work.

Based on your outstanding tasks, the variety you want and your energy levels, you can schedule different kinds of tasks.

That way, you stay very productive.

Try to make sure you aren’t disturbed during these time blocks too.

Managing energy

Your focus and energy vary throughout the day.

To make the best use of this, listen to your body and mind. Try to work with your current energy levels as much as possible. It also helps to actively remove things that drain your energy and, above all, do things that give you energy.

This is different for everyone. Many people have an after-dinner dip; I don’t. I regain focus after eating, so that’s when I schedule harder tasks.

In the morning, I need more time to get going, so I prefer to schedule administrative tasks then.

These are all things you can pay attention to and use to make adjustments.

The following list isn’t complete, but it’s a useful starting point for things that cost energy:

  1. Your opinion about a task: “I don’t feel like it,” “boring,” “difficult,” and so on.

  2. Too much caffeine.

  3. Too many carbohydrates.

  4. Too little water.

The following are useful starting points for gaining more energy:

  1. Enough rest: sleep, meditation or other recovery.

  2. Healthy food.

  3. Vitamins and minerals: omega-3, magnesium, D3 and a multivitamin.

To have as much energy as possible, the first step is to understand how your energy levels vary during the day and which time blocks you have available.

Be aware of your real priorities

To make progress on different projects, it’s important to give them the priority they deserve.

You often say, “This is important; it needs to happen,” while your actions reveal a different priority. That’s perfectly normal. Sometimes something more important than your side project comes up.

It’s hard to anticipate this. But when you should be working on your project and pick up something else, that’s the moment to pause and notice it.

How did this happen? Did something more important overrun? Had you run out of energy, or did you need to relax?

This is a moment to reflect. Are the ground rules we set earlier still working? Is the time block you allocated really ideal?

Ask yourself: “What can I do differently next time so I can work on my project?”

Optimize as you go

There’s a reason many gurus recommend doing the most important thing first. As the day goes on, inefficiencies pile up. Things overrun, other people interrupt you with their priorities, you start getting tired, and so on.

The aim is to make EVERYTHING you do more efficient. This means starting things without resistance and getting on with them without distraction.

A few steps can keep starting quick and efficient:

  1. Make sure you can start within three small steps. Everything you want to work on should be ready within reach.

  2. When you finish, think ahead about what you want to do next and make sure you can start it quickly.

  3. Extend that principle by asking: “Do I have everything I need for all my projects tomorrow?” and “Is it somewhere accessible?”

Now everything has a place. You can start quickly, and there’s a good chance you won’t be disturbed when you want to work on your projects.

The next step is to think about the projects themselves. There’s a lot you can do to make the step toward visible results as small as possible.

Critical mass

Finishing a project is like rolling a stone up a hill. You need to put in a lot of energy, and if you stop halfway, it gives you nothing. The stone rolls back down and you’re back where you started.

Exactly the same applies to a project. Without that first delivery, it’s essentially been for nothing, although perhaps you learned something.

You can describe a project’s critical mass in hours of work and elapsed time.

Suppose a project takes 120 hours to deliver. If you can put in 12 hours a week, the elapsed time is ten weeks.

The concept is called critical mass. You want to get your project over the hill as quickly as possible: results as soon as possible, so you can enjoy the benefits immediately and stay motivated to keep working.

Feedback mechanisms are essential

Building a feedback mechanism is essential to your project. It can be anything from a simple form to evaluating whether a problem has actually been solved.

It’s your compass, your GPS, your way of checking whether you’re on the right track. The longer you wait, the greater the risk that the project won’t be completed successfully.

A feedback mechanism is so important that it’s worth thinking about BEFORE starting your project.

Function before form

Initially, function is generally more important than form. The number-one trap is making things look beautiful when they don’t work, and scaling up inefficient processes.

Form can come later, after the concept is proven and your project has received its first feedback. Once you know you’re on the right track, you can put your foot down.

Focusing on form too early can make the required critical mass explode. Then, if you’re wondering where all your time went, you were there watching it happen.

Don’t reinvent the wheel

Reinventing the wheel is another project time sink. The reason doesn’t really matter, but it’s usually because we think something could look nicer or work better.

That’s the trap: it doesn’t have to be perfect. Ninety-nine percent of the time, a project’s value isn’t in its individual parts. Improving one part isn’t what gives the project value. The interaction between the different parts creates that value.

Productivity