Three Tips to Make Progress on Big or Long-Term Projects When Your Schedule is Full

If you’re reading this, then I’m assuming that you don’t have a lot of time. So I’ll try to be relatively brief, which isn’t always easy for me. You've probably been reading my blog posts, after all.

Like you. Like everyone. I often find that it’s difficult to keep my long-term projects on track and on time. In order to make reasonable progress, I automatically assume that I’m going to need multiple blocks of time to focus. Ideally, two or three-hour blocks of time, completely undisturbed.

Who am I kidding? Not you. Your schedule’s already full.

I regularly recommend that my clients read Deep Work by Cal Newport. I’m a big believer in carving out time to focus in order to produce high-quality work. But at certain times of the year — the holidays are a prime example — you really need to take your copy of Deep Work and toss it out the window. Or maybe just put it to the side for a little while.

There has to be another way. Another way to make progress when finding two or three quiet, undisturbed hours on your own for deep work just won’t happen.

I think there is. So here are my three favorite tips for making progress on your long-term projects when life gets crazy and you’ve thrown poor Cal Newport out the window.

There are going to be days, weeks, and even months when you won’t be able to find the ideal time — or even enough time — to work on your biggest projects. So cut yourself some slack and stop trying. 

My three favorite tips

First, I owe credit for at least two-and-a-half of these tips to productivity gurus I’ve followed over the years, Carl Pullein and David Allen. I’ve written about them before. But the first tip is one that (I think) I came to myself in what felt like a desperate situation — and then Carl Pullein had a helpful suggestion. 

The situation I’m thinking of was one of those anxious, leg-shaking moments when I was looking at my calendar, despondent. I had too much to get done and was hoping against hope that I could magically slide the multi-colored appointment blocks of my digital calendar around to make enough time for the deep work I knew was necessary to complete a bigger project.

Stop trying to find the right time

It's guaranteed. There are going to be days, weeks, and even months when you won’t be able to find the ideal time — or even enough time — to work on your biggest projects. So cut yourself some slack and stop trying. Instead, do your best with what you have. That was my not-so-earth-shattering realization in that anxious, leg-shaking moment I described above.

Once I came to terms with my situation, Carl Pullein had a small but surprisingly useful suggestion that helped me put my newly-internalized work philosophy into practice. Instead of putting a task named, let's say, "Write blog post" in my task manager, I put a task named "CTW Write blog post." 

What does CTW stand for, you ask? It’s an idea that I borrowed from Carl Pullein’s post and video. One that has brought me a lot of peace. CTW stands for: Continue to work on. In my example above, the task "CTW Write blog post" stood for "Continue to work on Write blog post."

Magic.

My anxiety level fell, and my leg stopped shaking. I was acknowledging to myself that I wouldn't be able to complete the task in one sitting. Instead of rushing through it too quickly and sacrificing quality, or not completing the work and feeling like a failure, or not starting at all, it made look ahead at my calendar and determine when I would have time to finish and do a good job of it.

And that forced me to prioritize and make some choices. Never a bad thing.

Mind you, I don't use CTW as a productivity get-out-of-jail-free card. But it’s definitely useful. When you can’t fully complete a major step towards a big or long-term project, assigning yourself a CTW task prompts you to do at least some of the work rather than just pushing it off until that mythical time when you can truly focus. You’ll probably need a few CTW tasks to fully complete your work, but it’s sure better than not starting at all.

Make it easy to get started

Speaking of getting started, do yourself a favor and make it easy to start or pick back up on the work you need to do for a big or long-term project.

How do you make it easy? Be organized.

Keep the notes and resources you need to get going in one physical or virtual location. If you’re using a digital task manager and notes app (which I recommend that you do), create a link in your task to your notes or to the relevant documents and spreadsheets. This tip I definitely got from Carl Pullein, and I can’t thank him enough. Here’s an example of Carl linking a Todoist task to an Evernote note.

Nothing will stop you dead in your productivity tracks faster than having to figure out, for the nth time, where you filed your notes and if you actually created a document or spreadsheet for a particular project. In order to avoid that type of dreadful situation when writing this blog post, I had a CTW task that included three things in its description field: 1) a rough outline of my thoughts, 2) a link to the Google Doc I had created to draft this post and 3) a link to the empty blog entry I had already created on my blog hosting service. These notes and links made it easy to get started on writing the post — even when I only had a half-hour or so to write. I didn’t have to waste any time at the start. I just opened the task, clicked a few links, and got going.

Always have a next action

This omnipresent tip in the productivity world comes to us by virtue of David Allen, who is considered by legions to be the founder of contemporary productivity culture. In his classic, but getting a little dated, book Getting Things Done, David Allen teaches you to always identify your ‘next action.’ 

Similar to the previous tip, by having identified your next action in advance of doing the work, you spare yourself the potential confusion, and even more importantly, the potential friction involved in getting started on something. 

If you’re short on time, the last thing you want to do is to have to figure out where you were in working on a big or long-term project. At the outset, identify at least the first step you need to take. And when you complete tasks along the way, make a habit of writing down or entering your next action. Future you (as they say in the productivity world) will thank you. And you’ll be able to pick up where you left off with minimal time wasted, making the most of the smaller slices of time you might have when your calendar gets crazy.

Conclusion

When your schedule is full — or perhaps it’s always full —  but you still want to make progress on big or long-term projects:

1. Stop torturing yourself and accept the fact that you’re going to have to find bits and pieces of time to do the work, not a solid two or three-hour block. Use the CTW task device I described above.
2. Make it easy to get to work when you do have those bits and pieces of time by keeping your notes and resources close at hand, or just a click away.
3. Always know what the next action is on your projects — whether you’re just getting started or completing a task along the way. You’ll be much less confused when you do find time to make a little progress and there’ll be that much less friction to overcome.

While these three tips are no silver bullet when it comes to completing your bigger and long-term projects, they’re at least a little grease in the wheels of progress.

If you have career-related projects that are languishing or seem abandoned, and you just can’t seem to get things in gear, let’s talk. I may be able to provide the organizational inspiration, guidance, and accountability you need to get back on track.