Get More Done by Dividing Your Week into Project Days

There’s a lot to do at Green Growing Things plant store. They recently acquired 1–800-GOT-GREEN, and the integration team is in full swing. IT Director and merger manager Melvin is running things, and he’s on top of … well, everything.

“Put the Audrey IIs right next to the lilacs. Venus fly traps? Put them in the break room for now. Eventually, they’ll … What do you mean the cash registers have incompatible payment systems? I’ll read up on both tonight and decide which … Hey!! Watch it! And where’s Fluffy? Has anyone seen Fluffy?”

It sounds like someone’s just a teensy weensy bit over his head. And if we listen carefully, part of the problem is that he’s simply trying to do too much at once. Let’s help him sort it out:

1. He’s trying to make a plan to physically merge the inventories. And when the inventories contain carnivorous plants, that turns out to be especially important.
2. He needs to understand what’s incompatible about the payment systems and figure out what to do about it. Money is the lifeblood of a company, and without it, the Audrey IIs won’t be long for this world.
3. The plant store cat, Fluffy, needs to be located. Or, given the tufts of fur next to the Audrey II pens, perhaps replaced.

Multitasking Doesn’t Work

Here in the 21st century, we’re taught to deal with everything by multitasking, which has already been shown to cause your brain to melt. This is extremely bad news for zombies, since melted brains are not nearly as tasty as normal brains. You’ll appreciate how bad it’s getting when I tell you that some zombies are actually switching to steel cut oatmeal.

Usually by “multitasking,” we mean simultaneous split attention, which is a fancy way of saying, paying attention to two things at once. Like when you’re reading an article on your phone, responding to an incoming text message, watching Netflix, and writing an email message all at once. In this case, you’re trying to pay attention to several things at once.

But there’s another kind of multitasking, which is taking on too many different cognitive tasks at once. Each task is big enough that it requires real attention. And even though you’re only paying attention to one task at a time, you are switching so rapidly and randomly that your brain can’t get and hold the context you need.

Brains Need Focus

Your brain is a powerful and mysterious creature, capable of subtle, world-changing things. Kind of like Kim Kardashian. But it needs time. Solving big problems, like the lunch room fridge, require you to stick with he problem long enough that your brain can gather and connect all the relevant information. Then it needs time to ponder and daydream. Then and only then, after time spent doing hidden and mysterious things, will the answer appear, as if by magic.

Unfortunately, if you’re Melvin, switching back and forth between tasks so rapidly and randomly, you’ll have two problems: first, your brain will start mixing up which things belong to which problems. Is the leather harness and leash for Fluffy, or for the Audrey II? Or maybe for the new marketing director? It’s confusing!

Second, your brain never gets to stay in one mode long enough for those magical slow-cooking processes to work. Instead of finding a solution that’s as elegant as a nineteen course gourmet dinner paired with wine, you find a solution that’s more like microwaved nachos during a Superbowl Commercial. (Yay, Velveeta! When real cheese just won’t cut it!)

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Set Aside Project Days

A better solution is to schedule per-project days. Yes, schedule an entire day to devote to a single project. Your brain can get in the groove, gather your mental resources, and really dig into that project.

Do your best to keep the day filled with only things related to that project: all meetings must be project-related. The only email you answer is email related to that project. Your reading? Only for that project. 

I’m exaggerating just a little bit. You can take breaks, daydream, and do some mindless administrative tasks. After all, that’s when your brain works its Kim Kardashian problem solving magic. But give your brain the luxury of staying mainly on one project.

Melvin can declare a rearrange-store-inventory day, where he can really dig down deep and get to the roots of the issue. Once he’s made the plan, he can pass it off to the rest of the staff to implement. But in order to make good decisions, he needs to be able to identify and consider everything that’s relevant. 

Use a Meta-Project-Day to Resolve Conflicts

But what about the people who are waiting for the new org chart? While Melvin’s doing his inventory planning day, are they just twiddling their thumbs?

To some extent, maybe. And that might be just fine. While we have an irrational belief that everyone should be working all the time in a business, that just isn’t true. If the inventory plan is the current bottleneck of the business, then giving it a devoted day may be very wise indeed. For details, read about the theory of constraints in The Goal by the late Eliyahu Goldratt.

But let’s go with the irrational, bad myth that everyone should be working overtime every day—because that’s what the American dream has decayed into and your boss almost certainly believes—and add a special project day: it’s a meta-project day.

Here, the “project” is coordinating. You make sure that people who need you can proceed without you on days you aren’t working on their project. Plus, if any of them are doing project days, you arrange to have stuff to do on days when they aren’t working on your shared projects.

Then, after the meta-project meeting, everyone can go back and get to work.

Half Days Might Work

A full, devoted project day seems like an awful lot of time in the modern world to devote to one thing. And it is. Depending on the work involved, declaring half-days might work. Personally, I find anything less than four hours of per-project time to be not enough. And having a project day be a full working day lets me get the benefit of “sleeping on it” overnight.

In the end, Melvin declares a half-day for his meta-project day. Everyone coordinates so no one will be stalled, and then he declares tomorrow as his payment system project day, since that’s the most urgent and important. Day two is physically merging inventory day. And day three, assuming that no unfortunate evidence is found on day two, is hunt-for-Fluffy day.

Give your brain a rest! Divide your week into full-on project days where you can concentrate wholly and fully on a single project each day. If you get done early, sure, you can go on to other things, but be prepared to let yourself get immersed in one single, deep focus activity.

This is Stever Robbins. Follow GetItDoneGuy on Twitter and Facebook. I run programs to help people develop the kick-ass business skills they need to create an extraordinary life. If you want to know more, visit SteverRobbins.com. 

Work Less, Do More, and have a Great Life!