It came to my notice, over this past week, that I lack a method for knowing the progress I make in pursuing the completion of important personal projects. This awareness came as a result of a progress-tracking method I encountered in my professional life.
In the method, a number of uncompleted tasks is collated by an automated system and sent to management for review on a biweekly basis. The hard data, I noticed, induces a push for the pursuit of task completion to ensure the number of uncompleted ones stays low.
I wondered if there was a way to bring such induction into the completion of important personal projects. And this brought to mind a post I had read a while ago on Cal Newport's blog in which he addressed his method for keeping track of project progress. He highlighted two methods:
Tracking specific milestones, and
Tracking hours spent working towards milestones
Tracking specific milestones involves picking carefully chosen outcomes necessary for the accomplishment of a goal and hustling for it's achievement. This method is useful for projects where outcomes are clear and approaches to reach them have some definition. Say, score high in GRE exam to secure admission for post-graduate studies or add X number of words to complete a chapter of a novel.
Tracking hours spent in working towards milestones involves using tallies to represent the number of hours invested to bring an outcome into fruition. This method is useful for projects that lack urgency (which tend to be the most important ones). Say, hours spent writing or working without distraction on trying to understand an important concept. It ensures, at the least, that these projects get a good share of attention and time, despite their inherent quality of lacking clarity and an algorithmic approach that guarantees completion.
It's normal to oscillate between these methods when handling certain projects.
Even with the best intentions to produce valuable outcomes it’s easy to become swayed by the demands of everyday life. However, using a system that provides a concrete metric for answering what have I done to bring me closer to achieving X, on a regular basis, provides necessary feedback to ensure active pursuit is accorded to the important (professional and personal) projects we care about.
Enjoy!
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Post Author: P. W. Uduk
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Photo Source: commons.wikipedia.org
Question of the week: What techniques do you apply to exercise progress? Please let me know in the comments.
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Nice piece.....
ReplyDeleteIt's easier nd more practical to calc specific milestones dan to calc hrs spent.....tho d later "if possible" gives a better result
I think it's best to use both methods. Tracking of milestones helps ensure progress and the other helps dedicate sufficient time for the project and avoid distractions. Good one Paul
ReplyDeleteWell said Ubong
ReplyDelete