So the last couple months have been pretty crazy with how many project I took on. I always told myself never to put myself into that situation again. I say again, because when I was younger and first starting out on the internet I wanted to do EVERYTHING that I could think of. And so I did, but no project would really get done 100% and only 1 out of every 10 was really successful.
I knew why too, it was because I just never followed each one through 100%. They were always half ass projects never finished completely. I swear if I finished all of those ON time and 100% through, I’d probably be making 5 times as much now. (no joke..seriously).
That is what led me to outsourcing and hiring employees. But that’s for another blog post.
Anyway, so a couple weeks ago I realized that I have WAY too much going on and I need to figure out a way to organize it all and keep track of everything. I felt WAY too overwhelmed and my brain was all scattered because in my mind everything was a priority. But that’s not the case.
Here’s who I managed to fix up this clutter in my head.
- Start a new Excel spreadsheet – Call is Projects.
- Column A – Write down ALL your projects that you got going on. Don’t get into details just make a list with a 1 to 5 word descriptive of the project.
- Column B – write down what the status of each project is. Started, OnGoing, Didn’t Start, etc.
- Column C – write down how much the project is making you NOW per month
- Column D – write down each TASK that you need to finish the project or get it to where you want it to be. Make sure the list is thorough, such as “outsource articles, graphics, website, programming, etc.)
- Column E- write down how much it will COST to get you where you want.
- Column F – write down your EXPECTED income from the project. (rough estimate)
- Column G – write down outstanding issues that are in the way.
So now you have a list of ALL your projects, how much you are making and what you have to do to finish each one. Now you have to prioritize each project. This is where it can get tricky. People ask me why not go after the goal and the one that will bring me the most money and then work backwards. I tend to disagree.
Here’s why. Because you want to concentrate on what’s making money NOW. It’s all about the power of NOW. So first things first – sort the spreadsheet by the money your making most on top. Mark all the one’s that are making you the most money to least money numbered in Column H.
Now the sites that are not making ANY money yet, you have to use your judgement on how much it will COST and decide which project is most important to you. I tend to go by tasks, not exactly costs. So the more tasks the project has, then the less important it is to me. I like to keep the big projects for last.
Now here is where the REAL magic come’s in.
By now you’re probably like okay, I made a list and shit. What the fuck do I do now?
Well you made a list of all the projects and tasks you need to do right? Open another sheet in Excel or another Excel file altogether. Now take ALL the tasks you have to do for your already profitable projects and GROUP them. So if you have 4 projects that are making money now, and you need to make banners and articles for all of them. Take the 4 banners you need to make and make a description of the 4 banners you need to make. Then take the 4 articles you need and make a description for the 4 articles you need.
Do this for ALL your tasks. Be sure to keep your current profitable project seperate from your non profitable projects.
Okay so now you have your PROJECTS organized, YOUR tasks organized, and they listed in most important to least important. Right? Step 1 and 2 are done. We’re almost there.
There are two things you can do from here. Either use OmniFocus (Mac Only) to manage your projects (highly recommended) or put all your projects and tasks in an online project manager such as basecamp.com or 5pmweb.com. Set deadlines for projects and the tasks that you’ve created and FOLLOW through. As things come up you can manage them all within these online management system.
If you do not want to use these kind of services you can continue to use Excel to manage these projects and tasks.
Now you take our grouped tasks that are making you money right now and get them outsourced or do them yourself as you prioritized. The reason I like to outsource most of my work is because it allows me to get work done that I don’t really need to do and focus on other things.
After you get your tasks back from the outsourcing company or after you do them, implement them immediately. As you start implementing start knocking off tasks one at a time.
Once you get around to completing 75-80% of the tasks, you can THEN start focusing on projects and tasks that are NOT making you money yet. I suggest you do not EVEN look at them until you have 75% of the other stuff done. Otherwise you’ll end up at the same place you started.
Now you can use this for ANYTHING. It does not have to be projects and tasks you are working on. You can use it for your personal life, things you want to accomplish, goals, and anything else.
Just make a list of things you want to do, then make a task list, bundle together and see where they cross, and then attack. So for personal life and goals, everyone has things they want to do but tend never to finish them. So prioritize these “projects”, make a task list, then attack. Once you reach about about 90% completion on these tasks then move on. I say 90% for personal stuff because it’s VERY hard to complete those.
This was a totally unedited stream of consciousness. I’m sure it’s a bit confusing. But if you get it you GET IT.
Sometimes things you do for yourself can be combined into business things, and sometimes not. So be sure to know where you draw the line.
I’ve been using this format for about a month now and have accomplished 4X more in the same amount of time. Incredible really. Maybe it’ll work for you, maybe it won’t. But it works for me!
Okay, that’s all for now. I’ll probably add more to this post in another post once I start refining my system.
