#088: Project Management for the Rest of Us

Welcome to the High Income Business Writing Podcast, helping you propel your writing business to a whole new level. And now, here's your host, Ed Gandia.

Hey there. Thank you for joining me for episode 88 of the High Income Business Writing Podcast. My name is Ed Gandia and this is the podcast for business writers and copywriters who want to take their writing businesses to the six figure level or the part time equivalent. As a quick reminder, you can find detailed show notes for this episode by going to b2b launcher.com episode 88. You know, sometimes I actually think I'm a pretty good project manager, which is laughable because when the project becomes unraveled, that whole idea goes out the window. And that's when I realized that I have much to learn about project management. Now I do believe that some people are more natural project managers than others. But there are very simple things we can all do to get better at managing any type of project, especially projects inside our own businesses. Things like launching our newsletter, revamping our website, which we've been meaning to do for a year now, or deploying that new marketing campaign that we committed to doing back in January but we still haven't done. You know, the things that we just keep putting off. I'm not talking about necessarily client projects. These are internal projects that for whatever reason, in many cases I found they just seem so overwhelming, we don't really know where to start. So that's what this episode is about. And I my guest is Cesar Abade. He is the author of the newly published book Project Management for you. How to turn your ideas into reality, deliver on your promises and get things done. What I love about Caesar's approach Guys, I am not a project management geek, let me just say that right off the bat. But what I like about Caesar's approach and what I really enjoy about his book is the fact that he talks about this project management stuff in plain English and he makes this whole concept feel much more approachable. I feel like he wrote much of this book for someone like me and maybe someone like you who, you know, I don't really want to get down in the weeds with the project management stuff. I just need to get this stuff done. And anyway, I just really glad to have him on the show. I think you're really going to enjoy this very simple approach he's got. He's got some very practical ideas that he's going to share with you that are already making a difference in in my internal projects here, in my training and coaching business and in Getting some things done a lot more efficiently and without the headache that they have been traditionally causing me. So, anyway, without further ado, let's get to that interview. Here is Cesar Abade. All right, so I'm sitting here with Cesar Abade, the author of the new book Project Management for your whole how to turn your ideas into reality, deliver on your promises, and get things done. Cesar, welcome to the show, man.

Thank you, Ed. It's great to talk to you. I've met you in person before and it's great to be on your show.

It is great to have you here. Just enjoyed our conversations that we had in person last year. And Cesar and I, for everybody's just knowledge here, we're part of a mastermind group for podcasters. A couple of years ago, we met through that. Met at a conference in person last year, just really hit it off. And anyway, I just really like your approach to this topic, which can come off as a bit dry and boring to many people. So it's great to have a different perspective here today.

Thank you.

Before we get going, why don't you give us a little bit of background? Obviously, we know that you're just authored a newly published book, but tell us a little bit about what you do and your background.

Yeah. You know, one thing I learned through this process is that authors are people too, you know?

Yes. Who is the person behind the book?

Right. Yeah. Every book is a story. So I am. I live in Canada, but I grew up in Brazil, actually, so I'm speaking a foreign language right now. And I went through engineering school. I've always been kind of a smart kid. Liked math and science and all those things. But I had a problem, which was I couldn't get things done. I couldn't finish things. I couldn't accomplish anything. I think I did well on tests and I did well in school, and that worked really well for the first 20 years of my life, 25 years until I graduated. And then all of a sudden that had no value anymore. I had to to deliver. And I struggled with that for a long time. And interesting enough, my first job title, my first job description was project manager for a small family company here in Canada. I had no idea what that meant, but it sounded really nice, especially because I was getting my first business cards. So I was passing that card around. My name and title, project manager. Then what happened is a few years after that, I realized that I needed. Needed to become more employable. So I looked around and I realized that there was a project management industry and a lot of people who had the title of project Manager, they had a certification called Project Management Professional. So I decided to get that. So I studied a very thick book called the Project Management Body of Knowledge, which is probably the most boring book I've ever read. It's a reference book. Imagine if you had to read the dictionary to pass an exam. It's kind of like that. It's very dry. But because I had to understand the material and I was already a project manager, I had to make sense of it. And in the process, I realized that the content of the Body of knowledge, Project Management, is really, really useful. It's genius. It's just that it's not accessible to everyone, only to people who are in that and in big corporations, not for the smaller companies or the freelancers like you and I. But I started implementing some of those ideas at work and in my personal life. And all of a sudden, I started accomplishing things. I started finishing things, started having ideas for products and services and for websites and different things like that. And I would have the idea and then use what I learned in project management, and I would deliver and I would finish and ship it. For the first time in my life, I was actually moving forward and succeeding in things. I'll give you an example. The reason why we met and we know each other is because of project management. Because if it wasn't for it, I would never have started and launched a podcast. I would never had started a speaking career. I would not have been to the podcast Mastermind or that conference, and we would never have met. So it really got me places and I got really passionate about this. I started blogging, I started podcasting on this topic, and finally I wrote a book. And this is why we're here today to talk about that process there that I describe in the book.

Wow. What I love about this is you haven't been doing project management all your life as a profession. This became something you had to learn in order to do your job well and become more marketable. So I like that because you approach project management from kind of a layman's perspective, because he had to come through it from another angle. Now, I know you're a big fan of David Allen's Getting Things Done methodology, and in your book, you talk about how, hey, it's great. Getting things done is great, but it has its limitations. So tell us where it falls short. Where it falls short. Can you explain that a little bit? And then maybe talk about this other area that's not address there and why it's Important?

Yeah. Getting things done is basically a system for your life. It's about clarity of mind and it's about choosing what things to do. While project management is actually the pursuit of one single outcome, if you will. Getting things done is about doing the right things, and project management is about doing things right. And the way I describe and contrast them in the book is Getting Things Done is about vertical. It's a vertical approach to things that land on your lap, things that come to your email inbox, things you get in the mail, and how you process all the information that hits you on a daily basis. So it's more of a horizontal approach, while project management is, let's say you get an email from a client asking you to. To create a new website for them, for example. Now, getting things done will help you process that information, but now you need to actually focus on delivering that service, that product to your client, and that's when you can use project management. Because in the book Getting Things Done, he takes a very simplistic approach to managing these projects. He described them as any outcome that requires more than one action to get done. And then he just says, you just need to worry about what the next action is. And when that's done, you worry about what the next action is, and on and on and on. And that's great for something simple, but if you need to do something a little bit more complex, that falls short. And that's when project management can come in and really help you.

So to clarify, getting things done really is kind of the horizontal view, the different categories and kind of that maybe that first layer of vertical action. But project management really is the kind of the deeper vertical, one step to the next, and doing it methodically.

Exactly.

Okay, that makes sense. That makes sense. So, you know, this is a big topic. Project management I really struggled with, man, what do I. What do we go with this? And as I thought about what freelance professionals really struggle with, and as I put these questions out to, to people on Facebook and some of my readers and listeners, what became really apparent is that the struggle is not so much with client projects. Many of us think of projects as, well, a client project. There are some challenges there, but the real struggle are the more internal projects that we have as freelance professionals. Getting our website off the ground or reworking our website, doing an overhaul there, adding a new service line and everything that comes with that. Launching a newsletter or a blog for thought leadership reasons, or embarking on a marketing campaign to attract new clients. These are all things that are extremely important. But Many of us struggle with them because we're too busy doing client work, so they fall through the cracks. So really I want our discussion to kind of focus on that. And I know you have a project management methodology. What I was hoping we could do is maybe you could talk through that methodology with those types of projects in mind. So I'll let you kind of take it from here and then maybe we can dive a little bit deeper into some of the core elements of your methodology.

Yeah, sure, that sounds good. So more like internal projects, right? So creating a new product or creating a new service, or creating your website. And the number one reason, this is not just my opinion, but I always ask folks about this. The number one reason people don't do these projects is because they are afraid of uncertainty. It's a fear of, I've never done this before, I don't know the steps that I need to take to create this new thing, but I have all these client work that are paying the bills, so I can just focus on that. But for you to take things to the next level, to do things better, you'll have to change things. And to change things, you need to work on projects. First of all, the definition of a project is any endeavor that has a definite beginning and an end and creates something new, like either a unique service, product or result. So when you think about that, yeah, your client work can be looked at as projects, especially for freelancers, because they correct me if I'm wrong, but a lot of times they'll get paid per result for the result for the deliverable. So it's like per project payment. So there's definitely a beginning and an end. You sign a contract, there's a purchase order, and then you get paid and you deliver and you shake hands and you move on to the next thing. So that is a textbook definition of a project. But the same can be said for things that you do internally. So if you want to have a website right now, you don't have it, and then later on you want to have it, so it's going to create something new and you will have a beginning and an end. Beginning meaning, okay, I'm going to start working on this website today and I want to have it done in a month. For example, you're able to look back and say, yeah, that's when I started, this is when I finished. It's checked off and it created something new. So when you look at these things that you need to do, create a new website, create this new product, and you realize that that's a project, then you can apply project management to actually systematize the actual creation of this thing that you want to do. And that is when it becomes really powerful, because that's when people get stuck. I'll give you an example. For example, when I wrote my book, I had never written a book before. I had a vague idea that I probably had to sit and write a lot of words and at some point it would have to go be edited by someone. And I kind of had a feeling that, okay, well, I'll probably have to find a printer to print this book or a publisher. But these were all kind of fuzzy. And this fear of uncertainty is what stops people from taking action on these projects that are important to them. How many people do we know that want to write a book? Right, but very few, actually, because it's. They don't know what to do. So what project management does is it creates you almost like a funnel in which you put these ideas and then you go through this process of breaking them down and then turning them into word packages. And we can talk about some of those in more detail in a more practical way. And then you can do. You can estimate how long it's going to take, you can estimate how much it's going to cost you to do. And you can make decisions whether this is something I should do now or no, actually this is something I should do next year because of the resources that it will take. It gives you that clarity. So you can actually focus on the idea itself and not on the fear of the unknown, if that makes sense.

It does. I love the concept. I think one of the things that I struggle with, and I don't think I know is that I have the idea. I'm great, I'm great with ideas and I have, like you with a book, some, some sense of what's involved, but it's very vague, very high level. It's. What I don't know, that I don't know exactly which is the problem. It's all those little pieces in between. I know the end result, I know the beginning, and I know some of the elements in between, but it's all the little elements in there and that give me grief.

Yeah, yeah. And this is. And you know what? That's, that's, that's my natural disposition as well. That's how I was, how I was made. You know, my DNA is. I'm easily confused. I'm very disorganized. And for example, my wife is an occupational therapist and I think I shared this on that Talk that I gave at Podcast Movement. When she deals, she helps. She doesn't work as much these days because of all the kids, but when she does work, she helps patients that have been in car accidents and they had brain injuries. She helps them remember the keys, remember appointments. So she has all these techniques that she uses to help these folks. I overheard a conversation between her and a colleague one time talking about this or that technique, and it sounded familiar. Long story short, she'd been using those techniques on me because I was that bad about forgetting things. So I am very disorganized. And when I learned these tools and techniques and this approach to actually getting the thing that I want to do done, that's when I started to make progress. And we can talk about some of these techniques if you'd like.

Yeah, let's do that. And I think one thing that might help would be to just, maybe just to keep it simple, stick with one example. And let's say that it's overhauling your website. You had a website you launched when you first went solo about five years ago. It was a very, very basic website. You know, we need to overhaul it. You want to do it, but you keep putting it off, mainly because you don't have a project management framework. So maybe let's use that. What do you think? And go through it.

Sounds good. That sounds great. Let's do that. And that's a good example. The first thing, and these are the first two steps here, the process I call composing and decomposing. Composing. You need to basically figure out what it is that you want to do in as much detail as possible. Overhauling your website is something that most of us want to do, but you need to be way more specific than that. First of all, what's the purpose? Why do you need to overhaul your website? And you can brainstorm that, well, I need more clients, or I need it to make more user friendly, or I want it to load faster, or I want these features that I don't have on mine right now, or I saw so and so's website. It looks so pretty. I want mine to look just as nice. And then you come up with your reasons. Okay, well, this is why I want to take on this project. Then what you need to do is once you figure out the whys, it's all part of the composing phase. You create your list of requirements. I want my website to be responsive. For example, I need a new logo. I don't have a new logo. So I'd like the website to incorporate my new logo. I like my website to have these pages and you mind map that. I like to have a homepage, an about page, a contact me page, a pricing page, an FAQ page, for example. And you go through this exercise and if you have a team, if you work with someone, or if someone is going to be helping you with this, that's when you bring people in to help you brainstorm these requirements. So you have a list that is solid and that in as much detail as you can. And this might change as you start working on this project, but you need something to start, because that's the other thing that stops us, is that we don't get momentum. As I say, it's always easier to steer a car that's moving than a car that's parked. So you get moving, even if it's not exactly 100% the direction you want to go. But at least you get started. So you spend some time composing the scope for this project to introduce a new word here, the scope, which is the requirements and what this project needs to deliver. Now, once you have that, the second step is to decompose. You built this dough for baking this cake, now you're going to break it into smaller chunks. This is where a lot of people get lost or they go about it the wrong way and that's frustrating. And they don't make progress because this is what happens. I'm sure you've been through this, Ed. When you have a big idea that you want to do and you start thinking about it, it's a bit overwhelming. So what do you do? You sit down and you decide to wr a to do list. Have you done this before?

Oh, yeah.

And here's the problem. You can't take a pie and break it down into cookies. A pie is broken down into smaller pies. So a big project, you don't break them down into to do's. Because a project is a noun, it's something that you're going to handle. It's a noun. When you break them into to dos, you're trying to break them into verbs, a noun into verbs. And that does work, right? So when you create a to do list, you're not making a project simpler, you're just kind of attaching yourself into a way of doing it, if that makes any sense.

Yeah, I think so. So in here, maybe my tendency would be with an overhaul, instead of figuring out what page I might start doing a to do list of, well, look for designers, write new copy, that sort of thing, right? So that would be my natural tendency yeah.

So for those two items, a better way would be instead of look for designers. One of the sub projects, I guess, that you're going to break your main project down into is design. That's a noun because you might have a designer on, on staff, in staff, or you may have a friend who will design it for you, or you already have a design that you liked, you just have to copy from that other site. But when you say create new design, you are telling yourself that you need to create this thing. Right. When it might not be the case, but the design itself is a necessary part. Does that make sense?

It does. So be treating it as a category instead of an action at this point.

Yeah. Writing new copy as well is also a verb. So instead it's just new copy. So that's one item. And then later on you're going to break that down into tasks when you sit with a copywriter, because then it's their job to figure out how they're going to go about it. Am I going to write it? Am I going to reuse some old copy from the other side? What is it that's not as important at this stage? You just basically break new website into design, copy, color scheme, all the parts that together, when you add it all up, makes up the new project, the new website.

Yeah. So then hosting all these elements. But we're talking big categories at this point, we're not talking about action steps.

Right. Hosting is another good example. So you do that once and then the task that you do is take all those sub deliverables, the sub projects, and add them all up and ask yourself the question, if I deliver on all these items, will the new website be done? And if the answer is yes, that's enough. If the answer is no, there's a few more items that you might have to think about. So it's called the 100% rule. You add all the, the bubbles that are under that main bubble and they have to add up to 100%.

In this example they don't.

In this example, they don't. So I'm sure you can think of some more sub items that need to be there when it comes to a new website. So we talked about design, we talked about hosting, talked about the copy. What else do you think should be on this website, should be part of this website?

Well, the logo falls under design. Let me think here. I think those are the bigger elements. The other one might be, there might be a fourth one which would be kind of the management piece. Like if you need someone to manage all this for you because you don't want to have to deal with the technical aspects.

Okay. Yeah. So we can have a. Yep. We can have a part there called project management. It's one of the deliverables here. You're going to have to figure that out. Okay. Who's going to manage this? For me, that's actually an advanced topic here. To have project management as part of your deliverables. It's kind of a best practices, but usually for larger projects. But in this case it could be as well. Especially if you don't want to be dealing with code and with the designers and developers yourself. You can outsource that part. So. Very good. And then once you have that, then you look at each one of those sub items and you do the same thing again. So you look at design and then you break that down, you look at hosting and you break that down. This is a simple project, so that might be it. There might just be one more level. But the idea here is to go through this exercise with each of those sub items until you get to a point when what you need to deliver, it's going to take you between a day and a week to do. It's called a work package. It's small enough that you can handle in a day. That makes sense.

It does, but let me make sure I'm following you completely at this point. The next level would still be categories. We're still not into action steps. Correct.

It's still categories. There's still nouns. They're still things. Okay. That you'll deliver. Basically, they're deliverables. They are categories, if you will.

Okay, so under copy, I might have positioning, which is more kind of strategy how I'm going to talk about myself. The other one would be maybe raw copy messages or key messages. Another one might be pages. Just some examples. I'm sure there's others. But we're still in the categories.

You're still in the categories. It might be part of copywriting. You might have an item called sourcing of, or just copywriter. Not sourcing, but copywriter. You might not want to do it yourself. So you need to figure out the copywriter who is going to do it. So that's another thing that could be there. And until you break down enough that you get to this lower level, lowest level of deliverable.

Okay, so then in this example there would be yet a third level. But at this point we might be now getting into actions, but yeah, that's the next step.

So once we get to the bottom level Here. And I recommend that you use a mind mapping tool to do this or even sticky notes. Okay. So you can move these sticky notes and these bubbles easily. So if you realize that, hey, this is actually sub item of another bubble. So you can just move that. And there are a number of mind mapping software options available. Some are free, some are paid. So I love mind mapping.

In fact, it's funny, while we're talking, I'm actually mind mapping this so I don't get lost in this process.

Very good. Yeah. So what, so what, what tool do you use there?

It's a very sophisticated tool called paper and pen.

Oh, okay.

I've heard of it from mind mapping. I've tried some of the tools. They're okay. I find I am much more creative and fluid. Paper and pencil or on a whiteboard.

I agree with you. There's nothing like that. You, it's like you're touching the item with your hands. You are very tactile.

It is. And I'll even so I have, I buy easel pads and I'll take them, I'll fold them in half and it gives me a very nice, very large landscape dimension piece of paper, two of them. And it's a perfect size for me at least for mind mapping.

Very nice. You know, you could take a picture of it and put it in the show notes.

Oh, there you go.

So we can all see what you're doing there. That's cool. So you do that. So now you have the lowest level. So right now if you did this well, what you have is almost like an organizational chart, type of, type of graphic. You have your central or top circle which is your project. And then you have branches. And those main branches will have the first level of sub deliverables. And then each of those will branch off again. So you have that tree like structure. And at the end of each branch there is a circle, there is a deliverable, that is the lowest level. Now the beauty of this exercise is that especially if your project is complex, if it has a lot of moving parts. Remember we were talking about the 100% rule, right? So if you add up all the sub levels of a level, you get the level complete. So right now, once you are done with this exercise, you can look at just. If you just do the lowest bubble in each branch, the lowest bubbles in each branch, if you just do those, your project is complete. You follow?

Okay.

You don't need to worry about the structure of it anymore.

Gotcha.

Okay. So what you do is in theory you could just get A big eraser and erase all the other bubbles and be left with just the lowest level bubbles. And now you have a list of what we call work packages in project management, which are deliverables that are simple enough that folks can do in a day or between a day and a week. And you can delegate that. Not only that, you can figure out how much each one of those circles, those work packages will cost you. Especially if you're outsourcing that, because you can just ask, hey, I have this logo design here that I need to do. Let's say it's one of those work packages, right? You can approach a designer and say, hey, I need this done. Can you tell me how long it'll take you to do it and the cost, please? And it's simple. They can do that for you. Okay, you can do that for each one of those.

Gotcha. The point here is you keep going down to the next layer until really the items at the last layer add up to 100%. That's when these are your work packages.

Yeah. Okay. So remember, the reason why we didn't take action at the beginning was because it was complex and we had a fear of complexity and the unknown. Now the complexity and how the project is put together is almost secondary. It's not as important anymore because you're focusing on single, discrete deliverables that are simple. And here's the cool thing now, now you can look at them and you can figure out which ones need to be done first. So, for example, hosting is probably something you want to think about early on. The website is kind of a fluid thing, but if you look at the building of a house, for example, and foundation is an item and roof is another item, you know that foundations need to be done before roofing. And then you can sequence them, you can put them in sequence, you can put all those work packages in order. And if you have people working with you, you can put them running in parallel, some of them, if they're not dependent on each other, you can have a designer working on a logo as your assistant looks for hosting at the same time, because they're not dependent. So even though each one of those tasks or work packages can take a day, if they're doing, you can do both of them in one day instead of taking two days to do them. So you can arrange them in sequence like that. And that's when sticky notes is really cool because you can just move those sticky notes around on a whiteboard and then you can add up the time that it takes to complete Each one of them, because you've been estimating. And you can tell your client or yourself or your team that, hey, this website will be done in three weeks, okay? And you can add the cost for each of the work packages, and you can say to yourself or to your client or to your team, and this is going to cost us $5,000.

Whatever, okay?

Now you have your project broken down into discrete, simple items, and you have confidence on your schedule and on your budget. And now all you have to do is work on those work packages one at a time without the fear of the complexity, without having all that. Excuse me, in your mind, it's down in paper, and you have numbers to deal with. Does that make sense?

It does. And I love this because, in fact, I'm working on a project right now for a new workshop series that I'm launching. And it's funny, you should see, I got it in Evernote. And you should see, I started with a to do list. So now I'm taking notes in here because I'm thinking, man, I got to go back to this. And I'm doing it. I broke it down into weeks. So week one, week two, week three, week four, and it's all to do lists. But it's a mess. It's all over the place. And it's my best guess as to which needs to come first. I did not take this approach at all. I should have read your book first.

Yeah, but, you know, that's the cool thing, because it creates this mind map that it's your project. Right. So if it's not in there, it's not going to get done. And if it's going to get done, it's going to be in there. Again, if you start with the to do list and your schedule again, you're cornering yourself into a way of doing it and a time of day to do it, which is. That should be the end part.

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So this right here, Cesar, is a revelation to me, and I know this will be huge for many listeners. Your methodology has a lot more components in this. But. But if you had to pick one more thing besides what we just talked about, that would make a huge difference, what would that be? Where else do people constantly stumble?

Okay, the other thing. And, Ed, when I was doing the research to write the book, I interviewed a bunch of experts in project management to get their opinions. Okay, how do we explain this to the layperson? One of the questions I asked was, what is the most important aspect of. Most important, most relevant, maybe underrated aspect of project management, people don't use or they take for granted. And one of the winners was this, and that was managing risk. Because this is what happens. I don't know if you follow guys like Dave Ramsey, people who talk about wealth management, they always talk about having a. What do you call it? Emergency fund, right, for when things go wrong. So a risk. Managing risk in a project is kind of like that. So what you do is you're working on a plan by doing these steps, but it never goes according to plan. Things are going to happen. So what you do is, especially if you're working with other people, you. You sit down with them, or if you're by yourself, you can do this alone as well. And just think about things that could impact the scope of what you want to do, the timeline and the price, Things that are very important that could really throw a wrench into this project. You try to think ahead of time. If you're building a house, you can think about the weather. We're starting in October, Winter's around the corner. So why do we need to think about what are we going to do if we had a big snowstorm on the day that we're supposed to pour the slab, for example? You think about these risks and you list them. You list the risks in the book. I give you a little bit of a recipe on how to approach this in a way that's not going to drive you crazy, because you can think about the smallest thing that could go wrong and could drive you insane. But there is an approach that you can actually prioritize these risks by likelihood and also impact. Some things are likely to happen, but they're not as impactful. Other things are. If they happen, they would really be a disaster, but the likelihood is very low. So you can put that in a chart and you can list only three or four things that actually are very likely to happen. And if they do, they'll be very create a huge impact. And then what you do, when you have a list of those likely and also impactful risks, you create a simple approach on how to handle it if it happens. And if you have people on your team, if you're working with other people, you assign that risk, an owner, somebody to look out for it, so if they see it coming around the corner, they can raise a flag. So that is because that's what happens. You plan and then things happen. And then all of a sudden your plan might not be valid anymore because you've made some assumptions and something happened that was unpredicted and if it does, if you already planned for it, then you know what to do. And you can still be calm and composed and maybe have to replan a little bit and move things around and change your scope a little bit or your budgets, things like that. But it's very important to have a little short list of things that could go wrong and what we're going to do about it if they do.

That makes perfect sense. And it's not something I would have really thought about. I guess we all know that things could go wrong, but to actually make it part of the process and to address that head on in the beginning, that's very smart.

Yeah. And you know, just like with managing money and your weight, it's 90% behavior, right. You can plan, have this beautiful Gantt chart with all these numbers and they're very accurate. But really remember, the reason why we don't take on projects is not because of that. It's because of what's in our heads. We are afraid of the unknown. So if we're not planning for risks and things like that, when they do happen, even, even if you're planned, if you planned well, they do play a number on your psyche. It lowers your morale and it kind of gets you, it makes you upset and concerned when you really should be focusing on getting work done. So if you think ahead of time, you have that confidence that you know what. Yeah, I know that things will go wrong, but I am somewhat prepared.

Love it. Very smart. So one of the last questions that I had for you was probably the most common question I got when I told everyone I was going to interview you was for the kinds of projects we've been talking about here, internal projects for a freelance professional. Are there any tools out there that are maybe a little bit more sophisticated in Excel, but nothing like, let's say, Microsoft Project, that would help you manage these types of projects better, more efficiently?

Well, especially because we're talking about freelancers and folks who are solopreneurs a lot of times just working alone. A lot of these project management tools, they are very useful if you're working with a team. They allow you. They let you create tasks and assign them to people and look at people's schedules and see who is overworked and who is not. A lot of that doesn't apply because we don't have a big team. The number one tool I would recommend is a mind mapping tool. You can put down your ideas and your requirements in there, make sure that they add up to the total project. So all and everything that needs to be completed and delivered is in this one page. So you can expand these branches and look at your project at a glance. Because you can always go back to this and rearrange things and it's always there, available to you. So I would recommend you go and one tool that is free, anybody can use, it's mindmeister. It's a web based tool. You can have up to three mind maps for free. If you go through those chapters in the book, I show you exactly how to break your idea down into these, into these branches and deliverables and you'll see how it's a perfect fit for a mind mapping tool. They're free and especially if you're working alone, you don't need to be creating all these tasks and assigning them to people because it's mostly going to be you who will perform them. But everything is there in one page and you can move things around as you see fit. That's my answer.

You know what? I can totally see that. Because now that you've described this process, I can see where I've been falling short and I'm sure I'm not alone. Once you have this, taking that to an Excel spreadsheet, it's easy. And at that point the spreadsheet becomes usable. Where before when I was trying to do this with Evernote or an Excel spreadsheet, it was just all over the place.

Exactly. Yeah, exactly. Once you have that, you can export it as whatever. And some tools are more sophisticated. There's a tool called mindjet or Mind Manager. You can actually turn those lower level bubbles into actual tasks on a Gantt chart. You can even do that for you. It's great. And you can import mind maps from other platforms into this one tool. It's a very powerful way to organize yourself. Then what you're going to see is when you do that and you, okay, here are my lower level, here are my work packages and you need to do them. Then you're going to start having ideas of other tools. How can I organize these work packages in ways that I can easily create, Delegate and then you can look at Basecamp and some of those other tools that let you do create those tasks and assign it to people. But you need that central brains for your project on a tool like a mind map. That's my take on that.

Makes sense. It makes sense. So tell us about your new book. I mean, I got it here in front of me. First of all, congratulations. This is a heck of an accomplishment. The book looks awesome. Would love to know more about what you cover here. So tell us more about it.

Yeah, so I think we covered this in the beginning. We talked about how project management, the material out there is mostly for the corporate world. The language is not very accessible. You can go to Barnes and Noble right now. Go to the business section. There's going to be a shelf there on project Management. Half the books there are going to be about passing the certification exam and the other half is going to be Introduction to Project Management or Project Management for Dummies. Even those books, I found that the language is kind of very corporate. Y what I try to do with this book is take what I learned and what was useful to me and to my small business and my career as an entrepreneur, as a podcaster, and what helped me because I had to read the entire body of knowledge, make sense of it. So what helped me? And I came up with the nuggets, the most important parts that anybody can use and implement. And I use a lot of stories to explain how those things are useful. It's a very unassuming book. It's not a business book. It's a book full of stories that introduce these concepts in a way that everybody can see how useful it is. And it gives you a step by step approach to take your ideas and turn them into reality.

I. I love it, man. This is, you know, I haven't read the whole thing. I was actually skimming through it yesterday and then this morning in preparation for Interview. But I'm really impressed with what you've put together here. And I was afraid that he was going to be a little bit over my head.

Yeah.

But it wasn't like I got it. So it's definitely written for the layperson. So I know you have a promotion you're doing right now. Tell us about that.

Yeah, so until October 31st. So between October 21st and the 31st, for about 10 days, I'm doing a little bit of an Amazon launch. So you can get it on Kindle on Amazon for just 99 cents. The regular price is $9.99, so it's a 99% discount. So you can go there and buy for 99 cents during this time. And if you send me the receipt, the proof of purchase, to my email. Email. I will also send you the audiobook for free. And that might be interesting to your audience because obviously they listen to podcasts, so it might be an interesting way for them to consume this. It's in the final stages of production, the audio book, but it will be ready by the end of October during this campaign. So again, until October 31st, a book on Amazon. The Kindle version is $0.99 and you get for free the audio book version of it.

Oh, that's fantastic. Where can they email you the receipt? We'll include that in the show notes.

Yeah, if you go to projectmanagement4u.com There is the. It's all in there. The link to the Amazon and how to submit your receipt as well.

Oh, perfect. So we'll just include that link. That's a central location. You can get all the links there. Excellent. Yeah, guys, take advantage of that. So that's through the 31st, then?

That's it. Yes. And then it goes back to the regular price and you can get it on hardcover as well. And you can find that@project management4u.com Excellent.

Well, Cesar, this has been enlightening. You've just given me a page full of notes here and I'm about to go back to my Evernote and just scrap that and start from with a mind map. So thank you. Thank you for sharing these insights, these ideas with us. It's been great.

Thanks for having me. It's great talking to you and I hope this helps you and people listening.

Well, I hope you enjoyed that interview and I hope you got a lot out of it. I know I certainly did. This mind mapping idea is already proving to be a huge help in this quest for kind of getting a handle on some of these complex projects that I'm having to deploy, yet I often struggle with. I wanted to remind you that you can grab the details show notes for this episode@b2b launcher.com forward/episode88. I also include links to Caesar's book and his website there. And that's it, folks. That brings us to the end of the episode. Again, I am your host, Ed Gandia. Thank you so much for listening today and I hope you have a fantastic day and rest of the week. Take care.

The High Income Business Writing Podcast is a production of of B2B business launcher. Learn more@B2B launcher.com because you've made some assumptions and something happened that was unpredictable. And if it does, if you already planned for it, then you know what to do. And you can still be calm and composed and maybe have to replan a little bit and move things around and change your scope a little bit or your budgets, things like that. But it's very important to have a little short list of things that could go wrong and what we're going to do about it.

If they do, that makes perfect sense. And it's not something I would have really thought about. I guess we all know that things could go wrong, but to actually make it part of the process and to address that head on in the beginning, that's very smart.

Yeah. And you know, just like with managing money and your weight, it's 90% behavior. Right. You can plan, have this beautiful Gantt chart with all these numbers and they're very accurate. But really remember, the reason why we don't take on projects is not because of that. It's because of what's in our heads. We are afraid of the unknown. So if we're not planning for risks and things like that, when they do happen, even if you're planned, if you planned well, they do play a number on your psyche. It lowers your morale and it kind of gets you, it makes you upset and concerned when you really should be focusing on getting work done. So if you think ahead of time, you have that confidence that you know what. Yeah, I know that things will go wrong, but I am somewhat prepared.

Love it. Very smart. So one of the last questions that I had for you was probably the most common question I got when I told everyone I was going to interview you, was for the kinds of projects we've been talking about here, internal projects for a freelance professional. Are there any tools out there that are maybe a little bit more sophisticated in Excel, but nothing like, let's say Microsoft Project, that would help you manage these types of projects better, more efficiently?

Well, especially because we're talking about freelancers and folks who are solopreneurs. Right. A lot of times just working alone. A lot of these project management tools, they are very useful if you're working with a team. So they allow you, they let you create tasks and assign them to people and look at people's schedules and see who is overworked and who is not. A lot of that doesn't apply because we don't have a big team. The number one tool I would recommend is a mind mapping tool. You can put down your ideas and your requirements in there, make sure that they add up to the total project. So all and everything that needs to be completed and delivered is in this one page. So you can expand these branches and look at your project at a glance because you can always go back to this and rearrange things and it's always there, available to you. So I would recommend you go and one tool that is free, anybody can use, it's mindmeister. It's a web based tool. You can have up to three mind maps for free. If you go through those chapters in the book. Okay. I'll show you exactly how to break your idea down into these branches and deliverables, and you'll see how it's a perfect fit for a mind mapping tool. And they're free. And especially if you're working alone, you don't need to be creating all these tasks and assigning them to people, because it's mostly going to be you who will perform them. But everything is there in one page and you can move things around as you see fit. So that's my answer.

And you know what? I can totally see that, because now that you've described this process, I can see where I've been falling short. And I'm sure I'm not alone. Once you have this, taking that to an Excel spreadsheet, it's easy. At that point, the spreadsheet becomes usable. Where before, when I was trying to do this with Evernote or an Excel spreadsheet, it was just all over the place.

Exactly. Yeah, exactly. Once you have that, you can export it as whatever. Some tools are more sophisticated. There's a tool called mindjet or Mind Manager. You can actually turn those lower level bubbles into actual tasks on a Gantt chart. You can even do that for you. So it's great. And you can import mind maps from other platforms into this one tool. So it's a very powerful.