The Project To Get Rid Of Projects - Draft 1

So you have too many projects.  I suggest you add another one.  After all, what harm can one more do?  The answer is a lot, but this one is special.  You need to create a project to get rid of your other projects.  If you have a well defined project system then simply add this to that system.  If you don't have a system, well let's add yet another project.  You need to start a project to define all your projects.

But for now let's leave organising projects and look at how you axe projects.  First off, you need to estimate how much time a particular project has committed you to.   This is of course a very difficult thing to do.  But it is essential.  You should not take on anything without some idea of what you are letting yourself in for. There are only 24 hours in a day and if you can work solidly for 8 of those hours then you are well into the top 10% or even the top 1% of human performance.  Realistically most people do well to get to six and I would estimate from my time as a manager of a laboratory, where all the workers were well above average in qualifications and to some extent in intelligence, that 5 hours would be the best you can hope for.

So on this basis, a five hour project robs you of a day of your life.   There are many 5 hour projects around.  For example, giving a talk at a trade fair is not going to take much less than 5 hours to prepare.   So you have lost a day's work even before you have booked the tickets.   Speaking personally, if I am giving a talk at a show I almost always end up chairing a couple of other sessions and talking to some people about the talk before and after I have given it.  So the day out at the trade fair is pretty much lost too, because I don't get to walk the show in the way I would if I wasn't speaking.

Smaller projects are even more of a menace.  Small blocks of time don't seem to count, but a couple of half hour jobs knock a big chunk out of a 5 hour day.

Basically, you need to guard your time jealously and zealously and be extremely aware of what you have committed yourself to.