Finding Time to Finish Projects

If you’re like me, you probably have a long list of projects that you want to get to but haven’t started yet, and probably two or three on the go. Kinda like books; it’s always good to have a few things to look forward to, but it’s also frustrating when you feel like you’re not making any progress.

I know, it’s a bad habit. Multitasking (now referred to as Task Switching, which is definitely a more accurate name) was how I was brought up in my office job. “Your job is to be interrupted” was the phrase often used, so regardless of how many critical projects and tasks I had to do, none of it could be deep focused work.

When it comes to creative projects I’ve been able to spend blissful hours (or chunks of an hour) working away on one thing, whether it is putting words on pages, making pottery, cutting and prepping fabric for a quilt, or crocheting something. That deep focused time, where I’m working on just one thing at a time has been a sweet refuge for my spirit. But how do I find time to finish my project(s)?

I’m really glad you asked.

One of the things I did take from both working on my degree and my office job, where I had to balance so many projects at once, was to work backwards from a deadline. There are many different project management theories and steps on how to do things, but this is what works for me:

  • Work backwards from a deadline: know when the project is due, and give yourself at least a weeks’ buffer time before the deadline

  • Break the task into smaller manageable chunks and focus on each one of those at a time

  • Set deadlines for your milestones, and ensure you’ve got the smaller steps outlined to reach those markers

  • At each step ensure you’ve built in enough flex time, and give yourself grace

  • Reward yourself for meeting your milestones.

Let’s look at each of these a little deeper.

Work backwards from a deadline:

This was always key for me, both at work and at school. If I had a paper due the first week in April, I ensured that my deadline for it was the last week in March. I wanted to have that built-in buffer time so if life got in the way (which happens all the time). I made sure that I knew what were competing priorities, and mapped everything out on a calendar. You can do the same thing for your creative projects, although often the only deadline is wanting to have this one finished so you can get to the next project. Other times you may have a specific goal, like making a present for Christmas or someone’s birthday. Definitely build in margin for those projects.

Break the task into smaller manageable chunks:

Identifying the parts of the project and breaking it down into smaller parts makes things easier to manage. With writing an essay that would be preparing your outline, doing research to find articles related to the topic, reading the articles and highlighting the evidence for / against, organizing those references to match the outline, write the draft, edit, edit, edit, edit some more, then another final edit. Quilting is similar: select the pattern, buy or pick the fabric from your stash, cut the pieces, assemble the pieces, assemble the quilt top, assemble the quilt “sandwich”, quilt the sandwich, trim the quilt, add the binding. (Okay, there are a lot more tiny detailed steps in each of those, but you get the idea.)

Set milestones for yourself:

If you know a certain part of the project will take a longer time than others, make sure to set mini-deadline milestones for those items, so you know how far along the project you are. In most cases you need to follow the same tasks each time to get to where you need to be; quilting again you need to cut the fabric before you can piece it together, so that needs to be done first. And it can also be a boring part of the process, detail oriented and careful (measure twice cut once works for both woodworking and fabric; although usually there’s a bit more wiggle room if you’re slightly off with fabric.) These milestones will help to keep you on track.

Make it flexible and give yourself grace:

Where you can, make sure you allow yourself some time buffers for the smaller tasks, too, so when life comes up or if another project takes priority, then you have room to move it around in your schedule. Life happens and we don’t want to put additional pressure on ourselves.

And finally, reward yourself.

You can either reward yourself at the end, or give yourself a small reward when you hit your milestones. It’s often that small reward that helps spur you on when you are in the weeds, and by the time you’re done, you’re so happy with yourself, that the reward doesn’t even seem that important anymore. It seems silly, but when I had started taking my first University course when I went back to school, I said I’d reward myself with some poutine (for those who don’t know, it’s a dish made of french fries, covered in cheese curds and gravy.) It kept me going through the course, but by the time I finished the course, I decided I didn’t want to do that to my body, so I never got the poutine. That was 15 years ago, and I still haven’t had poutine since. (For which my doctor and digestive system thank me).

So there are many ways to track these steps, and I’ve switched up my tracking processes over the years, but this has helped me complete major projects at work, my degree in anthropology, and my work to display in a pottery mentorship exhibition. Now if you want to work with deadlines, definitely try pottery — only there, it’s the clay setting the deadlines, and you’re along for the ride! LOL.

Let me know if you’ve got a project you’re going to try this with - I’d love to hear about it!

Grey and white cat and a white and black cat looking out a door at a large snowbank

Your reward for reading to the end - our two cats Harry and Clifford checking out the snowbank from a recent snowstorm.