For months, Erik and I have had my eye on only one project. We have been preparing every step towards it. We even decided to refer to this project as our WALK ON THE MOON. We had our Apollo program and our Mercury program. It was an incredibly fun and intelligent way to chart our path to this extremely exciting new development.
Our project was a success and will be useful in our professional future but what will be next? Now that our WALK ON THE MOON is complete, there is this fog of leftover projects that I had previously put aside. They are not in any particular order of importance, just not as important as our WALK ON THE MOON.
What Now?
For many days after, it seemed I would just stare at my computer screen knowing there was so much to do to catch up but having absolutely no idea of where to start again. I felt like there was so much that needed to be done right away. Because I had no idea where to start, I would find myself organizing my office or making phone calls instead of actually making progress.
The creative plan for the last project had so much organized detail on what was to be done. It was also flexible enough to allow for family emergencies and vacation days. At first, I didn’t want to put in the time to make something like that again but yesterday I realized it was absolutely vital.
The Next Mission
I wrote out all of the professional projects I had set aside and started piecing together what was necessary and what was possible. Pretty soon, I started to see a pattern that made sense and a light at the end of the fog.
There were questions I asked myself about the plan for these professional projects:
- What does a normal day look like? For example: When do the kids get home? When do I get up?
- What is absolutely set in stone on any given day? For example: My family needs to eat three meals.
- Where are the holes for things that don’t HAVE to get done? For example: My kids have time for homework in the evening when I need to be available but could make that time useful to me by reading emails as well.
- What does each professional project time frame appear to be? Is this a multi-day project, a single-day project or a partial-day project?
- Where will I take vacation days or maybe hours?
- Now, fill in the holes.
Honestly, it looks like I may be caught up by mid December. Still, at least there is a plan and when I complete each step, I can feel accomplished and deserving of that glass of red wine at night. I can also feel a clear head about what the goals are for tomorrow.
This new plan was not a small project but it will be worth it. There is still much to be done but the fog has lifted!