Nietzsche: The talent of some men appears slighter than it is because they have always set themselves tasks that are too great. \u2014 Human, All Too Human, Section Nine: Man Alone with Himself – Aphorism # 538
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(2024dec12) A couple of friends have told me that they found the project management section of my book Introspect to be incredibly valuable. It might seem somewhat ironic that I haven’t put together a nice blogpost about project management, but in a sense it’s because I’m typically busy focusing on more important projects. Nevertheless, I have a moment as I’m doing some general tidying, and I figure I might as well… edit and update this post bit by bit. Which is itself one of my PM principles. Do little touches from time to time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Another VPM principle is, try to make your project people-shaped. Let’s get meta. What would it mean to make this project (of updating this post) people-shaped? I’d have to pick a person that I’m writing for. The best person I could write for right now is myself. I would like to write something about project management that helps me<\/em> get better at project management. Maybe that’s not even the right phrasing to use. Super broadly: I’d like to get more of my highest-value projects done, better, faster. Where do I start? Right now my natural algorithm is telling me, get a quick estimate of how much time you have in this current session. As I write this at 940pm, I know that I ought to go to bed a little early today, since I have two consultations scheduled tomorrow. That means I’m going to be working for maybe an hour tops. That’s not a lot of time. What can I reasonably do in an hour? I have lots of tabs open. I could close a bunch of tabs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A lot of my tabs contain atrophied intentions… (hey, i wanna write something about atrophy<\/a>)\u2013 messes<\/a> are cluttered intentions… okay it’s time to wrap up and go to bed…<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2731 everything past this point is unedited old stuff i may get around to tidying up later\u2731 <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2731 \u2731 \u2731 \u2731 \u2731 <\/p>\n\n\n\n Some people dick around aimlessly their whole lives, while others build rocket ships and cathedrals. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Several people have told me that the above sentence made them uncomfortable. It reminds them that they haven\u2019t accomplished much, and they worry that they\u2019re going to be one of those who \u201cdick around aimlessly their whole lives\u201d, which is anxiety-inducing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now\u2026 slow down \u2013 I don\u2019t think that\u2019s dicking around is necessarily a bad<\/em> thing.. Your life is yours, you didn\u2019t ask for it, and you are free to do whatever you like with it. I\u2019m not interested in passing judgement on people who aren\u2019t accomplished. There are all sorts of variables that might come into play that make it harder for people to do things. Systemic inequalities, injustice, etc are all real things. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Also, there\u2019s a lot to be said about how dicking around can be unexpectedly productive! But if you\u2019re only dicking around because you expect<\/em> it to be productive, ironically, that takes the fun and magic out of it. So there\u2019s a sort of paradox here, and you likely need to see the humor in it and laugh about it in order to step outside of its vortex.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That said, I believe it\u2019s possible for most people to transition from being aimless to doing and making things that they want to be doing. If you want to, this is something you can work on. And I\u2019m here to help!<\/p>\n\n\n\n Raw intelligence don\u2019t really seem to be the core variable that makes the difference here. What seems to make the difference is something like \u201cexecutive intelligence\u201d, ie the ability to get things done, which is made up of a bunch of smaller skills. One of the skills is to make small and correct promises. Another is to assess reality as accurately as you can with a limited amount of resources (time\/energy).<\/p>\n\n\n\n You need to know how to focus on things properly. How?<\/p>\n\n\n\n You need to know how to plan. How? Plans are worthless, but planning is priceless. Mike Tyson allegedly said that \u201ceverybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n You should somewhat articulate your desires before you start investigating them. Like just make a list. Make moodboards. These are relatively fun things to do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2731<\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019m not a natural at project management, I\u2019m self-taught, my methods are very clunky. Jinky, janky, junky. <\/p>\n\n\n\n You should define your projects clearly. It should be definite, observable, clear. One of the best projects I set out to do for myself was \u201cwrite a million words\u201d, which I broke down into \u201c1000 posts of 1000 words\u201d. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019m still confident that I\u2019m going to finish the project \u2013 I\u2019ve spent almost a decade on it, I\u2019m about 80% done, and I\u2019m not going to abandon it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Funnily, as I rewrite this section of the book, it dawns on me that I\u2019m not nearly as good at project management as I would like to be \u2013 because if I were better at it, I would have finished this book by now. But I keep getting \u201cdistracted\u201d from the matter at hand. Because I\u2019m trying to do a lot of things at once, and I have a lot of things on my mind, and this is generally not advisable if you\u2019re trying to get some specific thing done, like write a book.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The problem is that each section of the book \u2013 especially this section \u2013 is something that could be expanded into a whole separate book. Reality has a surprising amount of detail. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2731<\/p>\n\n\n\n