Hello there and welcome to the Planner Pals Podcast, a podcast
hosted by two true planner pals. My name is Mark and I go by Mark
Your pages. And I'm Jess or Jessica and and
I'm really excited for this episode because I swear,
projects are like my bread and butter.
They are pretty much what most of my journal is filled with.
And I know that you're really into projects too, Mark.
So I want to get like all of your tips and apply them to my
system. Yeah, I'm really excited.
This is like one of the first episodes where I get to really
utilize a lot of the stuff that I do at work around project
planning. It's why I keep Bullet Journal,
honestly also for all the tasks and the notes and things that I
do. But planning and an analog way
for me personally is a really great way to jumpstart a
project, even though it eventually moves into a digital
space depending how you work. We have some of the ideas and
tips and things that we can do today.
So I'm really excited to touch in this topic and get started
because I know for you, you've got a really big event coming up
for yourself that you're planning for.
Yeah, And I did the foolish thing of checking the calendar
the other day and it's like literally less than four months
away. I am getting married, which is,
it's kind of funny because we've been engaged for such a long
time. We've been together for such a
long time. And I'm like, I won't feel like,
you know, that different or anything.
But the actual event itself, I'm like, Oh my God, there are so
many things that go into this. And I just need to get all of my
ducks in a row. And right now my ducks, like
ones on the hill, ones in the swamp, ones down the street, I'm
just like. It's really excited.
I'm so excited for you and I cannot wait and to see the
pictures and just to see it. I mean, obviously y'all have
been together like you said for a really long time, but like
this is a big moment, like you know, a giant event to plan for
keeping everything together. I know you and I talked a little
bit about it thinking the previous episodes, you know,
where we talked about planning things digitally versus analog
and you were kind of in the slump of like, well if I'm doing
everything digitally right now and I'm not really using my
journal, like what's the right way to do this?
And I think today's episode will be good because for me
personally, and I know for you, we are very similar in this way,
A lot of my planning for projects actually starts on
paper. I just prefer to do it that way
because it's in my own personal space and I can be messy with it
and I can kind of jot stuff down wherever I want, which then
helps me organize it and then feel really good and confident
about putting it in a digital space.
And especially for me when I'm doing this for a larger team of
people and project management and program management as well,
it's really important that it makes sense for them.
So I really like getting all of the ideas like out on paper to
essentially like a project planning brain dump to a certain
extent, and then feeling really good and confident about getting
it out there for everyone else to see.
So I'm excited to get started today.
Yeah, I completely feel you on that idea of starting on paper
as well because like there are just so many benefits to doing
it there. First.
If we think about it in terms of like spaces we could use in a
digital sense of like, you know, what you could use to plan a
project, a lot of them have a particular like setup or style
or uniformity between each of the projects.
It's like, OK, cool, here's your template.
You must now apply it to every single project and not every
project is going to work with that specific template.
When I think about project planning, I like to think about
it as a very kind of like modular thing.
It's like a pick and choose model of like, OK, well, this
type of project needs an event list of like, you know, like the
location and the guest list and all those kind of things.
Whereas other projects aren't really event based.
So it's like I don't need a guest list for renovating my
bathroom. I mean, we need vocal there, we
need the contract factor there, maybe your mom and dad, you
know, just to get some of those inputs on design.
Yeah, the people from down the street because they've often
probably looks better than mine and I like need their input.
And yes, if you could all RSVP so that I know you're going to
be there at 11:00 AM sharp. Yeah, I think the idea of being
able to scale projects appropriately is really
important. That's a skill that you learn.
You know, a lot of what I've done, my background is in design
and it hasn't always been in project or program management,
but I've learned over time how to kind of manage that.
And I think this is just something I'd like to throw out
there because regardless of the type of role that you're in or
what your job is, if it's not project management, you still
need to know a little bit about that just to be able to kind of
think through what is being done.
There's a lot of like second thought methodologies that are
out there to help you think beyond the initial piece.
I know I've done a video on that previously, but even for myself,
just talking through things sometimes helps you think like,
OK, I have this much time to plan this, Let's go ahead and
break that down. What are the different phases or
the things that I need to do for these different parts?
And so let's just kind of get into a Jess and talk about, you
know, this idea of like, how do we break down a really big
project? And again, everyone can take
this at different levels and medium are a small project and
kind of breaking down into smaller pieces.
Like what's your first like step, what you're thinking
through or like what do you need to kind of get a big project
started? Yeah, the first thing I usually
like to start with is just like you kind of said, is a brain
dump, getting anything and everything out of my head and
onto typically paper or just somewhere so that I can start to
make sense of it. Oftentimes going into a project,
I have a lot of ideas about it because when I get started, it's
probably not like the first instance of having thought about
the project. Usually I've been sitting there
ruminating on it for several months, if not years, Be like, I
should do that or like come across a cute picture on
Pinterest, like, oh, I should do that kind of a thing.
You start to build up this idea in your mind of kind of where
you want to go, but not necessarily like a set direction
to head in. So by getting everything out of
head onto paper, it means you can kind of sort through the
stuff that's gonna stay as part of the plan and the ones that
are like side quests, distractions, other things that
aren't really necessarily taking you where you want to go.
Another great tip too, especially when you're getting
started, if you're the type of person that doesn't want to get
kind of caught up with the space of a notebook.
I'm also a big like post it note fan and using those and just
sticking them up on a wall. Or I mean, I've even laid that
on like a poster board before because sometimes you need to
move those things things around, you know, you're brain dumping,
you're thinking about it, but you're not quite sure where it
needs to go just yet. Or sometimes even like grouping
or theming those liked ideas to kind of pull them together.
It works really well in a more tactile, functional place.
If you don't want to waste a lot of paper and post it notes, of
course, you can do that digitally.
Brainstorming digitally is great.
Like Miro is a great place or Fig Jam or so many different
tools that are out there that you can use just to kind of get
those out. But I completely agree with you,
kind of grabbing those little pieces of what you know is
really helpful because then it also helps you uncover like what
do I need to know? And making a note of that so you
can go out and start to get that information, to start to build
that bigger picture. Yeah, I love the point about
being able to do it digitally as well because like I do love
sticky notes, but I get very particular about sticky notes
and making sure like they're all aligned in a perfect grid shape.
And it's like, that's not the point right now.
It doesn't need to be like beautifully organized.
It just needs to be there. Whereas doing it digitally, you
can use like snap functions and stuff.
Things are all nicely aligned. It's like, OK, all of your
sticky notes, because they're digital are going to be
perfectly aligned right way up rather than or that one's a
little skew whiff. And now I'm distracted from my
project planning because I need to go put this in this perfect
grid. We've all been there.
Yeah, I definitely love that auto snapping and cleanup
features now. And like adding AI to a lot of
the brainstorming stuff is fantastic, especially in those
tools because you can brained up and throw it all out there and
then you don't have to use any extra brainpower.
You're like, can you just sort these for me by themes?
Can you give me a summary of what's up?
It can make things a lot easier so that you can really focus in
on getting into your project. One of the big things for me,
especially at work, I've done this just kind of a multi step
process that we take as a team. But something that we've been
doing as well recently is just first taking a look at like what
is the timeline that we have to get this done?
I find that that really helps dictate how much effort and what
we need to know and like how quickly do we need to get to it.
So if it's like, hey, you have three months for this, it's
easy, easy to start to break that down a little bit and be
like, OK, we have three months to do this.
So let's go ahead and start to set up and think about how we
might break this down. It gets a little bit more
difficult where it's like, hey, there's this big project and you
need to have it all together in three weeks instead.
And suddenly you're just like, but having that due date, that
end date is always a really important thing for me.
I shouldn't tell my team like even if it's forecasted, even if
we're not exactly 100% sure, give me a good idea.
And like at work, they're like, oh, by the end of Q3, I'm like,
OK, well that's three months. You know, like let's give me a
little bit of a closer idea, even if it's not perfect.
But that just helps me, I guess, like first and foremost, like
knowing the time that I have to get this done and then I can
start to think about how I break that down.
Yeah. And I think that by knowing when
your deadline is or even like a soft deadline is, it means that
when you're doing this initial brain dumping process of getting
all of your ideas out, you can start to think about what's
going to be realistic for the time you have.
So for instance, when we were thinking about planning a
wedding or whatnot, because we effectively decided in January
this year, it's like, Oh yeah, we're gonna get married this
year. Like, why not?
25 is a cool number, so let's do it in 2025.
My personal preference for date would have been April 25th
because it's literally the perfect date.
But planning wedding in under four months is probably like it.
It starts to put in some restrictions.
And restrictions can be great for creativity.
You know, creative thinking thrives when you give it some
boundaries. But I was like, yeah, now this
isn't going to align with my vision.
So given what I wanted, it's like, well, now I know that that
deadline needs to be pushed out. I can't have the perfect date.
I'm going to have the ass end of August instead.
Take what you can get. What's the weather like at the
ass end of August for you? Not great, but that also means
that things are cheaper and you're more likely not to clash
with anybody else's wedding plans.
Yeah, winter finishes up in August, so like spring
technically starts at the start of September.
So I'm like one day, 2 days shy of spring.
I don't think it counts though, because spring, at least at the
start of spring, is still soggy and very hit and miss.
So I'm like, it'll be fine. We opted for somewhere that's an
indoor venue though, because we knew the weather was going to be
likely a little bit crappy. Yeah, my wife and I got married
in October and it was 90°. The day that we got like in
October for us is like fall, Like you're in the middle of
fall. And we were like, why in the
world? I mean, it's a beautiful day.
Don't get me wrong. It was perfect.
But it was definitely like, OK, because that's kind of
important. And especially with your events,
depending what you're planning, you know, knowing when is
important because like you just said, even now, like we have to
think about what's happening at that time of the year.
You know, whether it's a work project, you're like, oh, end of
Q3 or, you know, whenever that is for you and you're like, OK,
well, what happened last year at that time?
Are we wrapping things up like for work, we also have to work
around like code freezes at the end of the year because I work
in like digital product. And so it's just like, OK, well,
once like November 15th comes around, nothing else can really
be pushed out there. So a lot of the times when
someone says to us like it has to be due by a certain time, you
also have to think about like what's happening at that time.
Are there any other limitations? So I'm a big fan of a big
calendar. I'll tell you that.
That's always a big fan of mine. Like I just want to see
everything like lined up in weeks.
That's that's how my brain works the best I feel.
Yeah, no, I would have completely agree with that.
I love things that have been organized in terms of like just
week upon week upon week rather than like a year at a glance
where you can't, oftentimes you can't really write anything on
it because they're just like individual numbers or whatnot,
given the way that I think about the passage of time.
And it's like, I don't know, did other people do this?
When I visualize a week, I visualize it as a circle, and
you've got the five days of the week down the bottom and then
the two weekend days at the top. And then you're kind of just
going around that circle over and over again.
When I try and visualize it in terms of like a project plan,
though, it's very much like a week stack.
So there are no months, there are only weeks, and it's just
stack of on stack of on stack of on stack.
Yeah, I, I vision weeks horizontally.
So I think about a Sunday to a Saturday.
And most of the time with work stuff you can like click a
button to take out the weekend. So it's only work days for us.
But I just see it as like a stack of weeks.
Like honestly, it's like a calendar like 4 to 5 weeks at a
block. I'm like, OK, show me this and
then the next month and kind of that thing.
And I just, that's how I look at it in just a circle.
It's a I've never thought about a week that way before.
Yeah. So I'm either like spiraling up
or I'm spiraling down, really spiraling up.
But I like your point about knowing like, you know, thinking
about that deadline, right? And not just using it as like a
hey, what's realistic for that amount of time?
Like, you know, three months out, four months out or whatnot.
It's like what else is happening in that span of time that is
going to dictate how much could be done or like how we're going
to approach this? Because it's like just because
the deadline is the end of August, it doesn't mean that I
have every single moment of every single day from now until
the end of August to work on that thing.
Like, you know, I have work like recording this podcast.
It's fun, but it's still work. I have other commitments.
I'm like, you know, going to go wild with you, which I'm so
excited about. But it's like that is going to
be a project unto itself that is going to take time, effort,
attention, resources away from planning a wedding.
Yeah, we've talked about that even for ourselves.
We're like, should we record a podcast there?
Should we plan for Go Wild? We're like maybe Go Wild because
if we can lock that down, then we'll be in a good spot for like
everything else. I'm even for something like that
and thinking through that project plan, even though I
mean, we're professionals just so like we know what we're we're
doing. We've done stuff like this
before, but the idea is still is there of saying, OK, we have
this many weeks until it's done and we have to, you know, meet
with the presenting team on this day.
So we have to be able to be able to communicate what we're
working on by that time. You know, giving ourselves that
kind of timeline is really good. One thing real quick, because I
feel like we're kind of already like really scooting down the
timeline here of our timeline of this.
I would also say like as you're going through that brainstorm,
and honestly, I feel like what we're saying here is that you
need to have kind of an idea of all of these pieces on that kind
of brainstorm space, whatever that is to be able to then break
that down. We already kind of hinted on a
little bit with that half joke about like the RSVP and about
who's going to come. But having the people that need
to be a part of this project though is a really important
part of that too. So when you're brainstorming,
you're throwing things out there, you know, along with the
date, along with the project, you know, kind of the ideas of
what you might have. Also make sure you think about
all of the different participants that are are part
of that. So if it is a work project that
you're working through, right, that's going to be any of the
teammates, you know, who's the team lead, who else needs to be
a part of that conversation? You know, maybe it is a project
manager or a product owner or the developers, right?
I'm speaking very much in terms of myself, but you know, if
you're working in more of a different space and it's hard
for me to think outside of design because I've lived it my
entire life. So I'm like, is there a printer?
Are we doing press checks? Like all these different things?
Maybe you can give me a better idea because people that don't
work in design designer probably.
Like the hell is he talking about?
Well, I mean, if you think about it in terms of any kind of
project where it's more than just you yourself as an
individual, like if we think about it in terms of a home
renovation project or whatnot, if you're doing everything by
yourself, good for you, Hector. Now would that be me?
But good for you. So, you know, there might be
painters that you need to get in contact with, a plumber, an
electrician, like a general builder or whatever.
You need to know when these people need to do their part so
that then they come into the project at the right time.
Not a lot of point hiring the painter before the electricians
come and bust up your walls to recable things like cool, it
looks really beautiful. Let me punch a hole through
that. So making sure you know when
people are needed, who is needed and like the kind of ordering of
that so that then your project can run as smoothly as possible.
Otherwise you get instances with, you know, for instance,
when we moved into this house, one of the things that we wanted
to do before we moved was get an electrician in to cable.
All about like effort, Internet and stuff throughout the house
so that we couldn't, you know, rather didn't just have to rely
on Wi-Fi. Verona happened and that didn't
happen at the time we wanted it to, which meant that all of our
stuff got moved in and it's like, cool, now all of our stuff
is here. So the electrician has to like,
either move around our stuff or like move our stuff out of the
way to do their job. So it just got a little bit
messy. Obviously, there's not a lot of
planning that can come into it. It's going to save you from a
pandemic, but still. It's a lot to think through
that, but stack I think is a really good way to then kind of
move it to the next part, which is like once you have all of
those ideas out, you know your deadline, the timeline that
you're working with, you know those participants.
You did a great job, Jess, of like thinking of another idea
outside of product design. You're like, what about a home
renovation project? I'm like, that is so smart,
perfect. What I like to do often, whether
you're thinking in circles or squares, whatever shape you like
of those weeks, that's when I start to like to break things
down a little bit. I like to do it in weeks.
Again, scale this project or appropriately based off of the
timeline that you have. If it's a smaller project, it's
only going to take you a week or you only have a week's worth of
time to do. You might scale that down into
days or even into hours. You know, how many hours am I
going to need to accomplish this project to get it done by the
end of the week? You can also think about this
for your own personal tasks if you need to.
But that's a really big part of like my next step is like I take
all those ideas and I start to break them down into those
pieces really. And who are they?
I Boston in my bullet journal will create a little bit of like
a project starter sheet, which is pretty straightforward.
It just has all the main information on it, which is like
what's the project name? When is it due?
And then I often will put in like the start date and then I
put those important people. And then I'll usually focus on
like milestones, like taking from that idea that we talked
about like that analog or post it note or whatever you're using
and say, OK, what are the big kind of things that are going to
happen with this? It's always starts with like the
project start or the project kickoff, you know, having all
the people in the room that have that conversation and then ends
with the launch, right, or the completion of that project.
And then from there, depending on the timeline, I start to
break down and think down a little bit more of like, OK, you
know, let's go ahead and focus on like phases, for instance, is
the way I like to think about projects a lot.
It's like, OK, we're working on the first phase, which is going
to include ideation and discovery and research.
Phase 2 is then like wire framing and like content design
and then moving from there into like finalizing it until launch.
Projects could be a very similar way.
Like you mentioned, we want to demo the space first before we
do anything else. Then we need to think about
what's happening after that. Now that the walls are open,
electrician, plumber, like whatever else that is, you know,
starting to really think about how that project is going to
break down is really important before you pick up the phone and
start calling people to come in. Yeah.
And I think that also by having those milestones or what I like
to call like metrics of success, it's essentially little things
that you're going to hit along the way as you get towards this
kind of like final outcome of the project.
It gives you a way to monitor your progress.
So very much visibly shows you that you are headed in the
direction you want to head in. I'm thinking about it in terms
of like the wedding. So I was like, did I write the
guest list? That was a milestone moment.
Like having that finalized. Another milestone moment is like
being able to send out the save the dates.
Another milestone moment is having like XYZ vendors booked.
So each of those are kind of like a little check that I can
put into my journal to say like, Yep, I've done that task.
I've done that thing or like I'm up to this part in the process.
So I am making progress. Especially when you end up with
a project list of like stuff that you need to do that's like
50 yards long. You're like, Oh my gosh, can't
see the forest through the tree. He's like, there's just so many
things to do. Having those are kind of like
specific milestones set aside as like AI know I'm making progress
if I have gotten like XYZ checked off at least or if I've
gotten to stage ABC. Yeah, and the milestones are
great too, because those to me are like your headers over top
of like your content, right? Like the the big milestone is
like what's that big thing we're working towards?
It's similar like in bullet journaling with nesting things,
right? You have that big thing that you
need to accomplish, but there's always those sub tasks that need
to happen that kind of. Fall below that bigger picture.
And I love that too because I love having that high level view
because it makes me feel less overwhelmed by all the things
that have to get done. And you, I hate saying this, but
it makes so much sense. It's like such a corporate
thing, but double click into that topic, right?
You go into it to open it up a bit more and you're just like,
and here's all the things that I have to do.
It's nice to be able to like close that off a little bit just
to be like, OK, these are the big things that I need to work
towards getting done that feels obtainable before you start like
going down that next level, right?
Being like, OK, save the dates. I have to send those out.
You know, then it's like, OK, am I making them myself?
And if so, what does that task list look like?
Or if I'm ordering them some place, you know, like what does
that need to look like? It, it helps break it down a
little bit more, but I also like it because it does help me also
feel like I make decisions at that point.
And again, I'm making decisions before I like hit go.
Just to make that clear. I'm not running, you know, by
the seat of my pants as the project's already flying along.
But having those milestones helps me make decisions at that
point to say like what do I want to happen in this timeframe and
then make a decision and kind of choose there And then, you know,
like, OK, then I can go down that path before I move on to
that next phase or big thing that I have to do.
Yeah. And I think that those
milestones can also help you give yourself kind of like
scaffold the deadlines to keep you accountable to working on
the project because it's all good and well at the start of a
project be like, Oh yeah, I want to have this done by the end of
September or like whatever. But if you haven't kind of taken
the map out when parts of that project are going to get worked
on, you might get to the start of September and be like, Oh
yeah, I said I was going to do that thing and I haven't
actually started any of it. And some of these tasks actually
take like 3 weeks, and that's going to take the majority of
the month, and then I won't have time for the other stuff.
So by giving yourself those kind of like little milestone
moments, those metrics of success, you can build those
into your plan so that you have smaller deadlines to hit along
the way to make sure that you're still making progress and that
your initial deadline that you set for yourself is still
realistic. It's a beautiful.
Point Jess totally forgot about those secondary deadlines to
keep us on track. It's like, yes, those can move,
but let's not try to move them too much because impacting
things at any point in that process, depending on how tight
of a deadline you're working on can kind of impact that next
phase. It's kind of the similar thing
with the house project. It's like, well, and that always
gets hard too when you have like that third party part, like you
said, like you have contractors need to come in when the guys
like, you know what, I can't come out this week to be able to
take care. You're electrical, you're like
cool, but like the guy who's patching up my walls is coming
next week. So like I kind of need you here.
And then suddenly everything starts to move back a little
bit. It's that's why I like honestly
keeping projects kind of small And to be very honest, where I
am the only one accountable, it rarely ever happens that way.
But I love being solely accountable or maybe like one
other person I trust, because when we start to add like a lot
of people, it turns into like that school project where you
have like two people doing all the work and the one person
sitting there like eating a bag of chips and drinking a soda
like we good. Can I leave now completely?
Understand, the only issue I have is that, like when I am the
only one responsible, it means that I am also the only one who
will hold myself accountable, which means I can slack off.
But if somebody else is partially responsible, then I
can get all up on their case. Me like.
Well, actually, Sir, you said that you were going to be here
at XY is at a time and XY is at a place and you're not here.
So yeah, you make a good. Point.
And actually, I piggyback off that real quick, Jess, one of
the things that I really appreciate and do to hold
yourself accountable, whether it's with yourself.
I love an accountability partner for a project too, but also
picking a cadence for you to do the check in's for yourself,
whether it's just, you know, you're taking a look at your
timelines or what that looks like.
I love a weekly check in just because that's what I do with my
teams already anyway, because that feels like the right amount
of time. It is important to kind of gauge
what that looks like though, right?
Because think you can do it too much where everyone's like, I'm
sick, nothing's changing. I'm sick of talking about this
like, please no. But then if you go too far, then
suddenly like you miss those opportunities to connect.
So I think that's an important thing to think about too, like
how often you want to do that. I have a friend of mine who does
a little bit different, honestly, for project
management, but kind of for like house projects, Her and her
husband, they have a Kanban board on a wall in their office
and they have weekly stand ups for home projects, which I think
is the coolest thing ever. Makes me so happy whenever I
talk to her about it. And it's just a way for them to
touch base and like what's going on each other accountable, but
also talk about any progress that's been made or hey, we
really need to pick up on this because we said we would do
that. So like let's go ahead and move
that over to the like to do bid or like the working on it.
We'll get that done this week. This is like a really fun little
bit. I just like that so much.
Yeah, no, we. Do a similar thing.
We would like. Ideally it would be weekly.
We don't do it weekly. Typically it's like every
3:00-ish weeks kind of a thing on average if we're taking the
average of it. But it is just a really good
opportunity to be like, hey, these are the goals that we set
for our household or for ourselves together or like
things that we wanted to hold each other accountable to or
whatnot. How's it going?
Because otherwise life just be life in things just happen.
And then those kind of like intentions.
I don't like the word intentions.
I've actually decided that I don't like it at all because an
intention is just like a dream without a plan, a wish.
Exactly. It's a wish like it does, it
doesn't feel like it actually is going to do anything.
It's like, oh, well, I intended to get up on time and go
workout. It's literally feels just like
it excuse almost that's another can of worm anyways, but you set
these kind of goals for yourself or for your household or
whatnot, and you wanted to have somebody else hold you
accountable to it. When are they going to do that?
Because most of the time if they try to hold me accountable to it
in the moment, I tell them to politely rack off and don't tell
me what to do. And you're not my manager.
So having that set period though, which is intentionally
there for us to have those conversations, it feels more
productive and just kind of like safer quote, quote because I
know it's coming, which means I'm not likely to like lash out
and say like, no, you can't tell me what to do.
I want to eat 3 kilos of chocolate and you're not the
boss of me. I just like.
Envision Vogel being like, Jess, we have to this.
You're like, you're not my husband.
He's like, but wait, aren't we working towards that?
And Even so, like, what are you talking about?
I'm not your boss. Like we're partners just like,
sorry, I don't like to be told what to do.
It's literally. That it's like I'm the kind of
person who if I was just like just about to turn around and
unpack the dishwasher and somebody says, hey, can you
unpack the dishwasher be like, Nope, not doing it now.
Nope. Who's gonna not gonna do it?
No, no more. No yeah, rebel brain kicks in
and she's really, really helpful.
Said nobody ever. But then you have to kind.
Of curb that when you're at work or you're doing a project and
you're like, actually, it is your job to tell me what to do.
It's like there's a really funny meme I see sometimes where it's
like, I don't want you to tell me what to do, but at the same
time I need a detailed list of all the things I need to do to
accomplish the things you'd like me to do.
It's just like this, like terrible battle where it's like,
I need all that information, but don't tell me what to do.
So I feel you on that rebel brain 100%.
Yeah, you just need to. Like take the To Do List and
call it side quests. So then everything's optional.
It's like, oh, look at this pick and choose.
I have so many options now and then try to aim towards getting
them all done. Yeah.
And then it. Becomes too much like when you
play video games, you're like, I've taken on too many side
quests. What about that main objective
that we're trying to work towards?
Yeah, 100. Percent and then you've got this
like laundry list of things that you need to do and it's like
someone needs you to find their chicken.
I'm like, just get a new chicken.
Why am I, you know, Hero of the Realm being called in for this?
Yes, this is a specific example. I'm playing Assassin's Creed
Odyssey and like, I can't find the main quest anymore because
there's just so many side quests.
Oh, I feel. That 100% I'm playing an old
game right now. We're getting off topic here,
but it's still project management nonetheless.
But it's called Tiny Tina's Wonderlands.
It's like a Borderlands offshoot and I really enjoy the game.
However, any time you click on like a new like sub task to take
on or like a sub project, it replaces your main objective
with the newest one that you picked.
And so I could be like on a quest and a little like sign
pops up. Like do you want to add a new
one? I'm like, yeah, like while I'm
here. And then suddenly I don't know
where I am and I'm like, son of a bitch, where was I going?
I can't remember. End of side quest.
This is the thing right? Like.
Technically speaking, these are projects.
A project in its most basic sense is anything that you need
to do that has two or more actions required, right?
Like it's, it's not just like a one and done type thing.
So a project could be like, I guess we could go with this,
like making the bed. If you wanted to break it down
into all of the tiny little tasks that you have to do to
make the bed, yes, it is a project.
It's probably not a project that needs extensive amount of
planning, but that's also probably because you've done it
enough that you don't need to write all those things down
theories. Some of us don't make Abid I I
do make my bed. There's one of my, you know,
shining moments is like I can't remember to brush my teeth
consistently, but I make my bed. Well, I think another thing.
Is really important just while we're on this topic of side
quest and that is building in buffer into your timelines as
well. I think it's really important to
give yourself a little bit of that.
I'm going to slack off kind of mentality because it happens.
It's just important to get back on track right away.
But I love to add buffer, especially to projects because I
think it's like you, you kind of have to plan for what you don't
know is going to happen, right? It's the idea not so much about
like the weather, right? If you're going to have an
outdoor event, right? But it's still important to
think about like, well, what does happen if something bad
goes on or like we don't get the delivery of X thing by this
timeline? You know, giving yourself a
little bit of space I think is really important.
Again, if you are the type of person that goes on these
special side quests away from your main objective, it's
important to give yourself time to like realize that and come
back to that. So I think if you have the time
to do it, I always like to extend it by like a day or two,
regardless of kind of where that is.
You know, I think about deadlines often.
Like I said, I think about deadlines and working in weeks.
So if I say to somebody that it's going to take one week to
accomplish, I usually would be like, OK, for the most part
that's going to take a week to do, but let's give ourselves
like an extra 2 day buffer. In some cases.
If you're like working a Monday through Friday type of job, you
actually get 2 bonus days on top of that for the weekend.
Not that everyone likes doing work on on the weekends, but let
me tell you, when you're grinding down to that deadline
and you're not there yet, having those extra buffer days are
really important. Yeah, and if.
It's the kind of thing where like you are working on a
project where you can't set your deadline.
You can set your own deadline that's a little before it.
So it's like, you know, like tricking yourself into getting
things done or like, you know, putting that time pressure on
because sometimes having a time pressure can get you in that.
Like, OK, we got a hustle mindset.
You know, what is it? Pressure makes diamonds and all
of that kind of thing. It's not the not the healthiest
thing to approach every area of life, but still it can be
useful. I also find that like when we
add this buffer in and such, because we are so very much like
inclined to make plans based on perfect it, it can be helpful
pretty much anywhere to add that buffer in.
It doesn't need to be because something like catastrophic
happened or whatnot. It's like, Oh yeah, I got like
hella unwell and I couldn't work for 50% of the days that I had
originally given myself or anything like that.
It's just like the natural tendency of things to take a
little bit longer than and we predict them to Jake because
we're predicting under like ideal, perfect working
conditions. Like, Oh yeah, I'll sit down at
my desk at 10 AM and I will work solidly for an hour with 0
distractions and I won't get any notifications from Instagram and
then start scrolling for 20 minutes down a meme hole.
Like that won't happen. Just put the buffer into it.
And then if it does happen, at least you've still got time to
do the thing you need to do, especially for those.
Larger projects too, we talked about if you're doing it at home
renovation project and you are working with other contractors
and things like that. If you have a good idea on when
you would expect, you know, say the kitchen cabinets to be
delivered, you know, before you have the person come in with the
countertops, you know, giving yourself that extra week or so
buffer, you know, if you're the patient type, you know, you're
just like, I don't want to wait for that.
Like I want my kitchen put back together as quick as possible.
But the last thing you want, like we talked about before, is
your kitchen countertops coming before your cabinets are in,
right? Like that's just one of those
things where giving yourself a little bit of space is
important. Also in that way, like you said,
if if things get done sooner, that's even better.
There's nothing better than delivering something or getting
something done ahead of time. But working up to that last
minute. While I am the type of person
that is like, you know, someone gives me a deadline.
This often happens when I do go on those side quests where
suddenly my boss or a Co worker would be like, Hey, remember
that thing I asked you for? And I was like, I could have
just done that so weeks ago. And they're like, hey, be really
great. You know, you're ready to go for
an hour. I can get so much done in hours
because I've already been thinking about about it.
It's been up here in the subconscious, honestly, at least
I know like I've thought about it, like literally thought about
doing it, not necessarily like, oh, that thing.
And I can get a lot of stuff done in a short amount of time.
I do my best work that way. But it is hella stressful
though. I don't love that feeling.
I'm like sweating quickly putting stuff together.
And so I've been trying to kind of train myself out of that
often where I was like, OK, Mark, you said you were going to
do that. Just just get that done now,
right? That's just an outline
structure. Sure, Kind of.
We talked about before this brainstorm so that if I do have
to pull something together quickly, I can because I've
already kind of plopped all that information down somewhere.
There's nothing worse than being asked for something, you know,
in a short amount of time where you're like, that was three
months ago when we talked about that.
And I know that we, you know, started this process by doing
that brain dump, getting thoughts onto paper or whatever
kind of system is going to be best for storing that
information, at least initially. But making sure that all of this
stuff is not just kind of like, you know, written on paper and
then forgotten or like, you know, jotted down into a notes
app and then just left there to fester.
For us to actually get the project work done, it needs
somewhere to live that is going to be referenced more regularly.
And of course, like, depending on what kind of project you're
doing, different spaces are going to make more sense.
For instance, for me, in terms of wedding planning, I found
that the place that that's living right now is mainly in a
spreadsheet, which feels a little bit strange for a project
plan because I haven't really done a project plan in a like a,
you know, regular kind of XLS spreadsheet is on Google Drive.
But the main reason for that is it was shared to me by my
wedding planner. So it's like, well, she has
access, I have access. And because we both need access
to it, it makes sense to have it in that digital space.
I did end up writing it out in a separate wedding journal type
thing, but because I need to update it for her on the digital
copy, that's mainly where the updates are happening.
Plus it also means that because it's digital, I can link in
things like e-mail attachments and Pinterest board links and
all of this other kind of stuff that's going to be helpful for
the people that I'm working with.
Having all that information in one spot means that it's kind of
like the one stop shop type thing.
You go there for all of your wedding planning needs.
But of course, like depending on what project you're working on,
other spaces might work better. Where do you typically like to
store your project plan type things?
So I'm the. Same way once I get everything
written out, it's on paper. I'll usually do my first
timeline or like a Gantt chart or something on paper for myself
because I want to make sure it works before I start sharing it
broadly. A lot of the times for my team,
we're using Air Table. That's where all of our projects
and our tasks and our timelines are already going into.
I like it because you can have that data view, which is like
essentially like an Excel spreadsheet, so to say, but you
can literally click a button and turn that into a timeline.
It's one of my favorite things about air tables is like how
easy you can take one group of information and then kind of
like blow it out to these different views and different
forms. So a lot of times we'll do that.
There are times we have some of our program managers that like
to do things in PowerPoint. I don't love that, but it's it's
OK, I can make it work. I can still do a timeline or a
Gantt chart in there. The problem I have with a lot of
that a lot of the time is that it's not always shared.
We'll have some people who will e-mail those pieces, and then
suddenly you have multiple versions and you have people's
like, you know, final, final, final.
Marc Figuarito at the end, you know, and I was like, I can't do
this. I think no matter what you're
doing, if you're taking it digital, just make sure it's a
shared space, whether certain people only have view access,
right? You want to be the only one that
updates it, but other people need to see it.
You can set up those terms yourself.
I think it's really important. So that's usually what I'll tell
them to do. Like if they're like put it in
PowerPoint, like I don't want to do it, but OK, I have to tell.
You this awful thing, which is just like your your story just
reminded me, but like I was talking to a party who will not
be named and they were telling me about their work managers and
where they store their meeting minutes and they take their
meeting minutes in excel. I'm like, why?
Why would you use a spreadsheet that's made for like, you know,
crunching numbers and making graphs and all of that to
takedown like long written bulleted notes.
It makes no sense. I was like, do they need like a
refresher in like Microsoft Office and how it works?
I mean if. That's the only tool you have.
I mean, work with what you got, but I mean, it's a good point to
say like use the right tool for what you're trying to do.
You know, if it's like don't try to make something work in a
program that's not made to do that.
Like when people do like project planning or tasking or things in
PowerPoint, I'm in a corporate space.
It's just a a go to thing. I'm like, this doesn't make
sense for anybody. PowerPoint is for presentations.
It is not for note taking. It is not for like a Kanban
board, like it's not for those things like find the right tool
for that. I think it's really important.
But again, put it in a space that's shared also.
So that way when one person updates it and updates it for
everyone one, you know, there's nothing worse than having three
versions of a schedule. It's like, well, you have one
version of it. I have a different one.
I'm in an update. Didn't I communicate that to
you? No, you didn't.
I didn't write that down. It gets to be a lot.
I mean, for myself, I do like to still keep a timeline in an
analog spot, but that is for me. And I have to be the one that
has to deal with if things move and all of that.
That's why anytime I do any type of project plenty in a notebook,
I use a pencil. No, that's very, very fair be
erased. Anytime I do it, I have to
remind myself, like Mark, use a pencil because none of these
dates will stay where they are. Never has ever happened in my
entire life where a date that we stuck to has stayed there.
Things always move. So I'm able to do that like I
have a calendar in the front of my bullet journal.
I think I've talked about this in my plan with me and like my
bullet journal setups, I really love a calendar planner view,
but the reality is that those dates move.
So I often am like, OK, I have to go into the office on this
day and then something come up and we have to move it instead
of like wipe it out or pretty just sticker over top of it or
doing whatever. It's like, erase it, put it over
here. It makes a lot more sense, yeah.
I find that like working for myself by myself, a lot of my
projects don't require other people.
And also a lot of my projects aren't necessarily like work
based, or at least the ones that I feel the need to plan out
aren't work based projects because you can think about
like, you know, making a video, a project, it has multiple
steps. So it's like, you know, plan the
topic packaging, like, you know, thumbnail and title and such,
film edit, re edit, B roll upload, whatever, all of those
kind of things. But because that is a process
that I do so often, I don't typically feel the need to like
plan it out. I just write those tasks down in
my journal and then get them done.
But if we think about like projects that I feel do need
planning, these are the ones that are usually a little bit
big ticket in work. If we're thinking about like,
you know, like a product or something like that, or they're
going to be something that's more like a personal project,
and oftentimes I will plan those on paper just because I like the
tactile feel of it. I like your point about using a
pencil because probably should be doing that, but I'm not.
I just got little migrated arrows all up over the show and
it's fine. Most of the time when I plan
those out, I like to plan them out by week rather than by day
because any of the projects that I usually am writing down, it's
typically got a timeline that's at least three or four weeks.
So it's like, OK, well in week 1 we'll do these things.
In Week 2 we'll do these things. I haven't had a project recently
that's been such a short one that I felt it was big enough to
bother. Planning out and then I needed
to go and scaffold it in terms of like what day certain things
were being done on Most of those, I actually just kind of
like I'd say I planned them in my head.
Are they planned? I don't know, but they certainly
executed. They're just not necessarily
written down in like a formal plan.
No, I'm the same way. I've been using those analog
cards from Argmont. Can I do the same exact thing?
Like I'll be like, you know, review the planner pot episode.
Like there's multiple things that will go into like reviewing
or editing or doing a voiceover or whatever.
You make a great points, like you've done it so many times
that you don't have to create that phase card.
But like when I started making videos, recording things, doing
all of that, I actually had cards like this very similar.
And I've also used sticky notes too for this too on each of
those phases to remind myself so I have something to check off to
get through with it. Like I would always do like an
export check, like make sure the audio was good, make sure the
video was good. You know, all of the different
things you have to do. Eventually it just becomes
normal. You don't have to document it.
But up front though, I think it is really important so you don't
miss a step. I think a really great one for
me was like hit record before doing a plan with me and
recording a video like things like that, that you're like,
well, of course you would do that.
How many times have I done a plan with me where I thought I
had hit record and never did? And then you get to the end of
it or turn your mic on so that you can do audio.
That's happened more times than I'd like to where I'm like I
said everything I needed to say, but it did not capture any of it
because I didn't switch my mic on.
Like things like that, that you're just like, OK, I know
that now. I mean, a bad thing sometimes
need to happen to you for you to remember to do it next time.
But eventually you'll get to a point where maybe you don't need
to. But I think no matter what those
don't like a timeline, a visual, something like that is super
helpful just to be able to do that.
I don't know. I'm a visual learner.
So I think for me, that's why it's always really important.
If someone's like, oh, that's next Thursday.
I'm like, I don't even know what today is.
Mike, let me look at a calendar, OK?
Today is Tuesday. Next Thursday is visually right
there. Now I know what we're doing.
Yeah. I think that if you have any
kind of project in your life, that is the kind of thing that
is going to happen again, taking the time to set up a template
can be so helpful because it means that you don't have to do
all of that work upfront again. So if we're thinking about it in
terms of like video creation, you just write yourself a
checklist, right? And that means that every time
you're going to make a video, you go through the checklist.
If you're thinking about it in terms of like, I don't know,
report writing or whatever, it's like, OK, you know, this is our
formatting for titles. Have I checked that?
That's the right thing. This is the way that they like
to structure XYZ. This is, you know, the font
requirement or like anything that you need to check to make
sure that you're putting out the piece of work that is actually
going to be accepted as like, you know, usable or whatever.
It's like if you have your checklist of steps to make sure
that like everything's done the way it should, quote, quote be
done, then it means you save yourself the hassle and
heartache of having things sent back to you and say, sorry,
that's not actually what we want.
Sorry, that's not good enough. We don't want that.
If we think about it in terms of like a home project or whatnot.
Most home projects we don't do twice unless somebody really
closely cocked it up the first time.
That's more so thinking about like, you know, big ticket
projects. But something like making your
meal plan for the week is technically a project, right?
It's like, you know, look in the fridge to see what things we
actually have and stuff that we need to use.
Figure out what people are doing in the week.
So who's actually going to be there for each of the meals?
Figure out meals that people will actually eat.
No, sorry, this kid doesn't like lentils anymore.
Like whatever, right? If you have your kind of like
formalized process to follow for those types of projects, those
things that have multiple steps, but you do them often, then it
just means that you streamline that process for yourself and it
can make save like just save so much time, saves so much time.
I mean, even breaking. Down this episode, it was like,
well, do I need to write that down?
Because I just, I just do that automatically now.
But for those of you who are not project planning or don't do it
often or you know, maybe have something coming up, it's, it is
an important thing to be able to break something down into
digestible pieces, especially if think about like giving
directions, right? It's like, you know, turn the
left here and turn right there. You're like, wait, I've never
driven that road before. You're like, oh, let me give you
a little bit more extra detail there to be extra helpful with
it. I think it's the same thing with
those project plans, like whatever you need to figure out
for yourself, write down, visualize kind of however that
looks like up front. Once you do that a few times,
except you have a template or whether it's even a mental
template, right of going through with it, it makes things so much
she's here. It's kind of.
Like giving yourself what like Sops, standard operating
procedures or whatever for your life, which can feel very kind
of like clinical or corporate or whatnot, but there's a reason
they do it all right? Like if you think about big
business, you know, or whatnot, they need to save time where
they can. Time is money, all that kind of
thing. So it's like if you are the kind
of person who thinks you don't have enough time in your life,
quote, quote, quote, make quotation marks over that.
But if you are that way inclined, then having these
standard operating procedures or these kind of like templates and
flow charts and your regular practices that you do can just
help save you brain space and time and energy and all the
things and in some. Cases when things come at you
and you're not really quite prepared, sometimes it is really
nice to have some methods or kind of pre done templates out
there if you're not ready to create your own.
And that's one of the things that Jess and I will actually be
talked about it go wild as our productivity planning talk is
going to go about. Jess, I'm just like excited for
that because because it's like some of my favorite ways to
breakdown work and like we get to share with a whole group of
people I know I'm. Really, really excited for it.
I mean, like I'm excited, but I'm also nervous because
speaking on the mainstage, like OK, last year I had to introduce
Bonnie from Arthur and Olive. I say had to like it was some
giant trauma thing for me. It was not that bad.
I just don't speak in front of an audience.
So I'm very excited, but also very, very nervous.
And I'm so glad that you're going to be there with me
because otherwise I'd just be like full on freak out.
But like the planning process, so that that is it's going to be
a project. It has multiple steps.
So it's been quite interesting like, you know, applying some of
the things we just talked about to that very daunting very
closely near project that it's like it's literally in a week,
it's in a week, maybe a week in a couple days we are going to be
on the mainstage. You go wild.
I'm so excited. It's going to be such.
A good time so hopefully you'll be able to join us we'll
definitely talk more about it post go wild just like we did
last year just kind of like what was it like if you're not able
to attend you know what was our experience this year which I
think will be different from last year I feel like a vet now
I've been in a full 1 you know last year I did the crop and I
did speak in front of a bunch of people I'm just used to it in a
way it doesn't bother me but just to be able to do that
collaborate and share that and really kind of be there is like
the planner pals podcast like we're representing this year as
something that like we've had going on for this past year
almost year and a half at this point now like it's pretty
incredible yeah I. What the Planner Pals podcast
is, it is out of its infancy. Like it's officially 1 1/2 or
whatever. I, I noticed somewhere someone
said like, oh, did you guys celebrate your one year
anniversary and whatnot? I'm like, we actually didn't, we
kind of just let it slip by because isn't the one year
anniversary is like Valentine's Day or something?
I don't know. I thought it was like January
ish or yeah February ish or so January is like.
When you floated the idea, but I think like the first episode
either came out on the 15th or the 14th of Feb, we have like an
offset. Celebration.
We celebrate like end of year. Like we definitely run this
podcast, like we run our bullet journals and planners.
I feel like on like a yearly basis, even though like when we
started wasn't exactly the beginning of the year.
That's how I think about it anyway.
It's just like it caps off at the end of our year.
We start fresh in the new one. So an anniversary doesn't really
exist necessarily. We work in months and years at
this point. I mean, yeah.
Very much that. I'm thinking back to like my
first bullet journal where I like stretched it out so I could
get to like the half year mark and then stretched it out again.
So that I can get to the end of year mark just so that I can
start fresh on like January. We've all been there.
We're planner pals. We'd love to hear from you what
kind of projects you're planning and if you have any methods,
methodologies or ways that you like to go about planning,
definitely drop a comment whether you're watching this on
YouTube, of course, if you'd like to drop a comment over on
Instagram and let us know as well, feel free and also you can
always feel free to e-mail us to plannerpalspodcast@gmail.com.
Let us know. We love to hear from this
community on what's going on and definitely more information,
more new things, like there's just so many ways of doing work
out there that we don't know about this community.
We've got each other's back for sure.
Exactly. And as I mentioned at the start,
like planning projects is like the bread and butter.
So any and all tips that I can get about this, I want to bring
it into my system and I know you have great ideas.
Very much looking forward to reading your comments and as
always, thanks for watching.