Project Charts Can Boost Productivity

Human beings are sentient.  We process information through our senses.  Although we use all of our senses, the majority of us process information primarily through our visual senses.  When we see things, we can understand them.  This is why memory experts advocate turning everything, including numbers, into visual items that we can picture in our mind.  Using techniques that help us visualize things helps us remember complex things quite easily.  We make sense of them more rapidly and understand them more deeply.

That’s why I took David Allen’s concept of creating a projects list, which he advocates reviewing weekly, and created a visual representation of it on my office wall using Post-It Notes.  With one project on each 1”X1” note, I’ve created a dynamic project chart.  I’m constantly moving projects to indicate relationships (Project A has to be done before Project B), to indicate dormant projects (moving them off to one side), and creating hot spots (moving them to the top) to indicate those whose priorities have reached the highest level.  Colors indicate my Key Areas of Responsibility, which are those areas that my supervisors deem vital in my role as an education administrator.  By doing this, I’ve created a chart that keeps my projects in view at all times instead of seeing them during my weekly review.  I’m able to make adjustments in my priorities on the fly.  New projects are easily added and completed ones moved to a separate chart that document my accomplishments for inclusion in my Executive Summary that is done yearly.

As I find myself more project-based lately, I find myself more focused and motivated as I work my chart, as most, if not all of my next actions, at least at work, fall within the context of one of my projects.  These work so well at work that I’ve taken over one wall at home for projects to be done there, including projects relating to my responsibilities as president of my local Toastmasters International Club.

Try this with your projects and seek out ways to make them and their tasks more visual:  Try the Post-It Notes.  Add pictures, different colors, different shapes, different colors of ink, and sizes.  Put these on a large sheet of chart paper and you can then add drawn lines that further create relationships between your projects and tasks.  In a short period of time, you will even begin seeing the chart in your mind when you are away from the office.  Your chart will soon be within when you are without.

Comments

[Jeroen Sangers]

I would love to see a picture of your Post-It project wall.

[Bert]

I normally don't keep a camera at work (other than my cell phone camera). I will bring one tomorrow and will take and post a picture tomorrow.

[John Brothers]

I took this to heart a couple of months ago, with an online focus. I created a website where you can quickly create project graphs. I did one for my most recent work project, and a bunch of others to track my progress against my new year's resolutions (like this one). I put them on web pages and Wiki pages to help create online dashboards to track progress.

It's free, there's no advertising (yet) - it's just something I built to learn the Ruby on Rails programming language. You're welcome to check it out.

[Reg Adkins]

As your focus is successfully getting things done, I thought you might like this article I posted on what we we consider "success" to be.
http://elementaltruths.blogspot.com/2006/01/comparing-educational-academic-and.html#links
Reggie

[Matt Glass]

Being a productive person goes beyond some basic definitions of success. Think that the author here is trying to illustrate creative ways of charting projects, not being politically correct by being a successful person.