014. Project Breakdown Episode

Breaking down large projects

• Work is rarely handed to us in small, easily achievable pieces
• Breaking a project down into small pieces gives you a map
• Measuring your progress improves your odds of succeeding

Know your limitations

• You only have so much capacity to do work
• Time, energy, resources, people, knowledge
• Identify what your constraints are

Start whittling away

• Name a few things that represent success for the project
• What needs to happen to accomplish each of those things?
• Prioritize your list
• How can you group similar tasks?

Don’t break everything down at once

• You can’t do everything at once
• You need a list of small things to work on for a short period of time
• When do you resume the project breakdown?
• Doing this exercise takes time and is part of the project
• Ask yourself if you’re close enough to stop

Overview of the process

1. Write down your constraints (time, energy, resources, people, knowledge)
2. Identify your main objectives (this is what success looks like)
3. Prioritize that list
4. Describe high-level steps to achieve each objective
5. Repeat numbers 2 through 4 for each step until you can start working
6. Resume the process when you need to

A fun Twitter exercise

• From Tinker Elle (@elle91): Without using the title of your job, tell me what you do.
• Erik: I help people find ways that tech and tabletop games can make them feel powerful.
• Leo: I teach people about productivity and technology in order to make their lives easier.