Easy Project Organization in 10 Minutes Flat: Tips for Organizing Your Next Project

Starting a new project can be both thrilling and daunting. While the excitement of exploring new ideas and potential benefits can be intoxicating, the process of sifting through all the ideas and organizing them into a coherent project can be overwhelming. However, project organization doesn’t have to be a cumbersome and time-consuming task. In fact, initial project organization can take as little as 10 minutes if you follow these simple steps.

2 Minutes – Define

The first step in project organization is defining the goal of the project. Take the first two minutes of your planning sessions to write out the purpose of the project and what it will accomplish. To further solidify the goal, answer questions such as:

– What is the purpose of the project?
– How will you know when you are done with this project?

Answering these two questions is essential to organize any project. Without knowing what you are trying to accomplish and what done looks like, you won’t be able to identify the right tasks and actions moving forward.

1 Minute – Identify

The next step is to identify the single next, physical action of your project. Take the next one minute to do this. If you are a GTD (Getting Things Done) nerd, you understand the power of the next action and how it can propel you to get from “I don’t know what the heck I am doing” to “one step closer to done.”

By “the next, physical action,” we mean exactly that. For instance, if your project requires you to call someone to get a quote on a new set of tires but you don’t know the number of the tire guy, your next action would be “Google tire guy’s number.” This gives you a physical next action that is accomplishable.

It may seem extreme, but identifying your next action gives you a stake in the ground to start from. Since you identified what the project will look like when it’s done, you now have the starting point and the ending point.

5 Minutes – Organize

Next, you need to organize the next steps of your project. Spend the next five minutes organizing a list of tasks in a natural order to move the project past the next physical action. Instead of analyzing why a certain task will be the best one to do after another certain task, which tasks can be parallel to one another, or what are all the major and minor dependencies of tasks and sub-projects, simply find the tasks that can be done at any time or have a natural order to them.

You don’t have to plan the entire project in a matter of 5 minutes. However, what you need to do is organize tasks in a natural order to move the project past the next physical action. You can always come back and do another 10-minute project planning session to finish your project organization.

2 Minutes – Review

Now that you have the bulk of your project organization out of the way, take the last two minutes to step back and review your project. If you see any glaring things that need to be changed before you dive in or pass it off to a coworker, take care of them now. Make sure your next action is truly a next action. Ensure that your list of subsequent actions are laid out naturally and aren’t full of awkward dependencies.

Lastly, go over the goal of the project and what will be true in your world when the project is completed successfully.

Conclusion

There is nothing like being able to take a large amount of ideas and snippets of actions and quickly put them together into a full-fledged project in 10 minutes. It helps keep the momentum of the ideas flowing and greatly reduces the resistance between idea and action. This simple plan may not work for a project like, “build a replica of the Taj Mahal,” but many of the projects that we need to accomplish for our work and lives can be organized in a matter of four steps and 10 minutes.

So, next time you start a new project, take just ten minutes to define, identify, organize and review your plan. You’ll likely find yourself moving forward with a more solid sense of direction and purpose.