Ever play "musical dates?" Sure you have. You know, thats the game where you take a personal project, set a fairly short and sweet deadline, then as other, more important client projects and personal affairs suddenly are added to the mix, you're forced to move your personal project from new date to date, as you try to finish the other priorities. Normally the end result—quite predictably—ends in an incomplete project, forlorn and forgotton on some tenth of never completion date.
I've set my business mid-year promotional resolution. I've researched my content. Now comes one of the most important tasks of the project, setting a realistic date that I can meet. Seems easy for some, but not for me. Like my website, personal projects usually remain a twinkle in the proverbial eye for me. I'll start off strong with what I believe is plenty of time to complete my project, only to have life in all it's unpredictible glory drop a dollup of "reality" that require my immediate attention and force setbacks on it's completion. Dollups like paying work, or personal affairs that I need to focus on and so forth.
I normally used to jot down one deadline date, the date of delivery. Too vague. Conversely, I didn't want to micro-deadline the project, so I concentrated once again on the major phases, adding extra time to hopefully account for any of life's little surprises. Unlike other occassions, this time I decided rather than working forwards, I'd work backwards instead. Because of it's content, my mid-year promotion had to be delivered before the kick off of the Memmorial Day weekend. I had to calculate how long postal delivery would take, then doubled it for assurance. That was my delivery deadline. I then calculated printing and package assembly, then as with postal delivery doubled the turnaround time. That became my project deadline. The time between my research and print deadlines was more than enough time to easily execute the project—approximately three months.
So that's pretty much the method behind the madness. I tried to take care not to overdo the planning process and organize my time and effort in manageable phases to, barring any cataclysms, avoid changing my first dates and maximize success.
Until May!
I've set my business mid-year promotional resolution. I've researched my content. Now comes one of the most important tasks of the project, setting a realistic date that I can meet. Seems easy for some, but not for me. Like my website, personal projects usually remain a twinkle in the proverbial eye for me. I'll start off strong with what I believe is plenty of time to complete my project, only to have life in all it's unpredictible glory drop a dollup of "reality" that require my immediate attention and force setbacks on it's completion. Dollups like paying work, or personal affairs that I need to focus on and so forth.
I normally used to jot down one deadline date, the date of delivery. Too vague. Conversely, I didn't want to micro-deadline the project, so I concentrated once again on the major phases, adding extra time to hopefully account for any of life's little surprises. Unlike other occassions, this time I decided rather than working forwards, I'd work backwards instead. Because of it's content, my mid-year promotion had to be delivered before the kick off of the Memmorial Day weekend. I had to calculate how long postal delivery would take, then doubled it for assurance. That was my delivery deadline. I then calculated printing and package assembly, then as with postal delivery doubled the turnaround time. That became my project deadline. The time between my research and print deadlines was more than enough time to easily execute the project—approximately three months.
So that's pretty much the method behind the madness. I tried to take care not to overdo the planning process and organize my time and effort in manageable phases to, barring any cataclysms, avoid changing my first dates and maximize success.
Until May!
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