What was the problem?
I realized that I have a lot of rubbish projects in my Nozbe(it’s my main task management tool). To better explain what I mean by rubish projects lets see how the structure looks like: PP means private, AF - side hustle things
- PP - General
- PP - Photography
- PP - Finance
- PP - Cyclic
- PP - SDM
- PP - Learn
- PP - Family
- PP - Shopping
- PP - To Check
- AF - General
- AF - Cyclic
- AF - SDM
- AF - Hikers Club
- AF - Course
- AF - Routes
- AF - Gamification
- AF - Mailing
I end up with a lot of projects that don’t focus on one thing. There where rather like big bags of tasks. The problem I’ve got with it was that it was hard to prioritize, a lot of projects contains things for someday maybe or where just rubish that should be deleted.
What I’ve done
The main goal was to simplify everything and focus on certain projects. Minimalistic approach consist of 3 projects per domain like:
- General
- Cyclic
- SDM (someday maybe)
So I created those 3 for each category (like private and side hustle). Then I reorganize my tasks - removed a lot of them, change projects for others. And I ended with this stucture:
- PP - General
- PP - Cyclic
- PP - SDM
- AF - General
- AF - Cyclic
- AF - SDM
Much cleaner right? All of the tasks from other projects I move to some of this 3 projects. For some of them I’ve added tags like “shopping” for the case if I want to filter all of similiar tasks. Next thing was to recognize projects that are most important for me in this moment. So I’ve created additional projects connected to goals like:
- KP - Finish Course (Record all the materials for my course complete programmer)
- DM - Make a plan (Can’t tell you what that project is, but the goal is to make a plan and decide if it deserves more time and my focus)
- HC - 500 member dc (Gather 500 members on my hikers club discord)
- PP - Lower Rest HR (I’ve heard in some podcast it is good to have low rest heart rate, so the goal is to lower it by for example exercises, running etc)
- PP - First tattoo (The goal is to get my first tattoo)
This are some of projects that I separate from the general ones, they also correspond to my long time goals and are most important for me at this moment. This are also project that shouldn’t live forever, I should focus to complete it.
Why goal-oriented project approach?
I found out that I like working on specific projects and complete them. Every completed project releses dopamine, so I stay motivated to do the things. Moreover creating projects with specific goal helps me to organize task in them. It’s easier to filter tasks that support my project goal, if sth does not support it I remove it, move it to General or SDM project. So now I’m not only completing tasks, but also projects. I changed my approach from a lot of immortal projects to specific goal-oriented projects with just few essential generic, long-lasting projects.