Do you work on more than one project at the time?
I usually work on more than one thing at the time. I have my main job, then one or two side-projects, home-related things like fixing the garage door. I'm wondering if other people do the same and if they use a project manager to keep things organized, or just use a project manager for their main project.
In my previous post, I asked recommendations of project managers and I still haven't found a simple project manager that can deal with all these at the same time. The best one I found is Trello, but I think there should be something better to keep projects/life well balanced and organized. Maybe there is an opportunity to create a new product?
Yes I often do. For me the optimum number is either 1 or a lot.
Doing a single project usually goes well for me because of focus. Doing 6+ projects at once usually goes well, too. I gain benefits from pattern recognition, have an easier time evaluating them dispassionately, and recognize when one is really going well. Doing 2-3 projects is usually the worst of both worlds. I'm not super focused on any one, and there aren't enough that it's easy for me to evaluate them objectively.
In my opinion, up to three projects at a time are manageable, but there can only be one project which has your total focus.
If you are at least a two-person team, Trello is a great tool for organizing all your tasks, especially for software development. Other than that, I'm just using Libre Office for notes on various topics.
Yes! I'm the absolute worst at this! I freelance, run a photography company, and a SaaS. Now I'm helping my girlfriend launch her first SaaS. Please send help! Literally drowning in projects.
I work as an in-house designer full time, I'm building my side project, making client work here and there, and I like to restore and fix my old Volkswagens in my "spare" time. Obviously my sleep hours suffer a little bit and having this much stuff going on will be reflected on slower progress on all those projects.
In 2020 one of my goals is to stop doing client work and just focus on my side-project, which is connected to my passion for old VWs.
Messing around with the cars in the garage, for me, works as an escape. It definitely has no financial return, but it allows me to clear my head and just get out of the computer, and I get a lot of joy from doing it.
To keep myself organized I use Trello, and a small notebook where I list 4 or 5 tasks that are aligned with my goals and projects, and my job is to complete those tasks. If I do the tasks I committed to do I mark the day with a W, and if I don't I mark the day with an L. It allows me to look at things one day at a time, and to just focus on doing the best I can on that given day.
I think having at least 2 projects to work on makes sense: one main one that takes up most of your time and is kinda your 'work' and a second casual/fun/passion project that is just a lot of fun even if it's maybe not a business or easily monetizable. The reason is sometimes you get burnt out on a specific problem or challenge in your main work, and instead of procrastinating and going off to do other unproductive stuff you can always migrate to your casual project and not waste productive hours.
I have worked on just one project at a time and also worked on multiple projects together.
I have tried Trello and a few more project management tools. It's hard for me to have the discipline to update them regulary. So, I have become averse to these online tools for daily life management.
Now I use a simple bullet journal to manage my projects and daily tasks. It's much much faster to refer to a hard notebook with simple flip of pages than a software. Softwares never saved me any time, they only made my job even more difficult, may be I never learnt how to use them effectively but thats my personal opinion. Been using a bullet journal for close to an year now and Its a lot easier to manage my time and keep track of things I need to get done.
I work on 4 clients at a time making up 80% of my working week, with the other 20% of my time working on my business. I then have family stuff, my stuff, etc, etc. I don't use a project management tool for any of it. I put notes in my notebook and also stuff I cannot forget in my calendar. Like paying bills, appointments, etc.
Hell no. It sounds insane to split your time between two "own projects". Even when multiple co-founders work full time on a single project, they still fail 90% of time.
I don't think its so much a lack of tools, as it is that fact that we only have so much time in a day, and its important to prioritize what we spend our time on, and delegate/eliminate the unimportant stuff.
Example: I used to change my own car oil - why go pay $100 to have someone change it, so stupid. But then once I started working for a company - and then working on my own projects, I don't have time to sleep, let alone change my car oil. I realized in many things, my time is much more efficiently spent working on my own projects and delegating out/completely eliminating the unimportant stuff. No tools will change that - this lifestyle change is hard at first, but afterwards seems axiomatic.(From a 3rd perspective people who brutally prioritize their life look like assholes - who don't bother fixing the garage door, don't care about what they eat, what they wear, were they sleep, the furniture, possessions - and many disagree with their prioritization. Many successful people have this tenacity and tunnel vision of whats important to them, it can terrible for family life, each person has to find their balance.)
Balance, maybe that is the key to a new tool. I get what you say when you mention oil changes, I guess is about knowing the real worth of your time and prioritize things while leveraging the help of others and specialized services.
Yeah - maybe better to say - prioritize what you spend your time on by eliminating anything that doesn't make sense for you to by doing and delegating out the things that can be done by someone else more efficiently. The better you can do the two, the more successful you'll be.