Episode 728: Project Management: Deep work for Household Project Managers

All right, in this series we are talking about how to identify, organize, and get done our household-related work with the household management system powered by the Sunday Basket. In the first episode, we talked about how much is our time worth as household managers and how long does it take to do these administrative tasks. Last week we got all of the easy stuff done. We made a big long list of all the tasks that we had, and we realized that if we group those tasks together and we do them during our Sunday Basket basket time, then we can get those tasks in and out, in and out in a weekly fashion, and have a process for doing all the administrative work we have to do as a household manager without doing a little bit every single day or working from never-ending to-do lists. So now that the tasks are done, they've got a regular cadence, they're going in the Sunday basket, and they'll be done every single Sunday for 90 minutes. Now let's talk about projects. So last week when I was going through all the different things that I thought of in my brain that I needed to do, I ended up with 3 different work-related projects— things that were for Labor Day weekend, things that were for redoing my grandson's bedroom, and things that were for redoing my daughter's storage. So in our basement, we've created an apartment for my daughter and her kids, and I have actually given her one of the storage rooms, and I want to Work on that. Our grandson just turned 5, and when my kids were little, I would redo their bedrooms every 3 years. And my daughter came to me and she said, you know how you used to redo our bedrooms? I said, yeah. She goes, let's redo Grayson's room. And I thought, you know what, when my kids were 5, that was the first time I redid their bedroom. So I was like, yep, game on, let's do that. So I'm going to review first all of the index cards that I have that are associated with Labor Day. Because if you listen to that podcast I came out with about how to organize your Labor Day weekend, you'll hear all of the random things that I'm going to do. And this may be the kind of project that you're looking to do first. So organizing my grandson's room and the storage unit, those are traditional projects. This Labor Day weekend project is more like a, how do we get a massive to-do list done in a short amount of time? And I do these kinds of projects all the time. So here's how I define a project. A project is something that is more than one thing that needs to get done that I'm going to do in a certain time block on my calendar. You can have 60-minute projects, you can have 60-day projects if you want, but this specific project for Labor Day weekend is going to be all these tasks I'm going to tell you and probably more that will surface, and it's going to get done Uh, Friday night through Monday night, Labor Day weekend. So I have technically 3 and a half days, but if you listen to my podcast, you know that I have one day because just adding one day to a 3-day weekend doesn't give you 3 days. It only gives you one extra bonus day unless you take away some of the work that you would normally do on a weekend, which I am doing. I am removing some of the work, and I usually get on a 3-day weekend, I can usually get about at least 8 hours of a project done. And I know that I'll be able to get these things that I'm actually doing— the bedroom and the storage room, we're doing all of this on Labor Day weekend. The main thing I want you to remember about a project is this: number one, calendar block it. Like, you need to calendar block your project. Don't just say it's going to get done on the weekend. When on the weekend? And thinking about your energy, when do you work best? I I work best in the morning. So does my daughter. So does my grandson. So when I work with my daughter, we're going to get started probably 9 o'clock in the morning is not too early for us to get started, the 3 of us. So we will get started early in the morning, and I will be done by like 5 o'clock at night. I won't be doing these projects late into the night. But if you're a late into the night worker, then go ahead and calendar block that late into the night. Um, and I will actually calendar block a lot of this. Let's see All right, so I'm gonna calendar block about an hour to clean out my garage. So when I clean out my garage seasonally, I go through and I just clean off— we have this really nice long kitchen counter in our garage. It's actually our old kitchen counter. So if you ever redo your kitchen, we moved our old kitchen cabinets out into our garage and we just bought a new countertop. You can get a 10 or 12-foot long countertop at Home Depot or Lowe's. And just put it on top of your old cabinets. And that's what we did in our, in our garage. So I'll clean off that countertop. I put a lot of things there that need to go to the donation station. We'll put those in the car. I'll run those over. I have an idea for a Christmas gift, so I want to see if I can rearrange the garage so this Christmas gift can fit in there when it's not freezing cold. Um, it's the end of summer for us, so my grandkids have outgrown all their summer stuff, so we'll go ahead and donate that. And get the fall stuff out. So I will clean out the garage. We also have a freezer out there, so I'm going to donate some of the juice boxes we have that my grandson doesn't like anymore and some dog food that we have. I have a baby stroller that needs to be returned. Um, and because this is outside related, I'm also going to go over and make those swings higher on the playset and take down the wreath off the front door, put up the fall wreath, wash that front door. All of that is garage related. This is going to take— all of that together and pulling the weeds is going to take about 90 minutes. So I'm going to write that down. That's going to take 90 minutes. Next, I need to go over to my son's house and figure out what's going on with a bunch of things. So that is going to take— I'm gonna put down 2 hours. It might be more or less, but I'm gonna put down 2 hours for that to go there, do it, and come back. Um, this task is my mother-in-law will come over on the weekend and I need to have her order her next Tovala meals. I help her do that, so I just have that set aside and I'm just going to write down that's going to happen at Sunday dinner, which we already have on the calendar. I need to pack. I don't have to pack, uh, Labor Day weekend, but I do need to pack in the next 2 weeks. This is probably going to take me 30 minutes, so I'm just going to put a little 30 on that. I really want to clean out the kitchen, including our lunch packing station, so I'm gonna put an hour for that. And then this I'm going to put with our basement project. Okay, so, so far I have a 90-minute project, a 2-hour project, another 2-hour project, an hour and 30 minutes. Okay, now I'm moving on to the 2 big ones. So redoing my grandson's bedroom. Now these are more traditional projects. Those projects I just told you about are things, maintenance that I want to do in my house. Um, just, you know, I do these all the time— clean out a room, um, wash things. All the— those are regular projects, and they're all pretty small, you know, 30 minutes to 90 minutes. You can find little pockets of time, but I will calendar block all those on my calendar. These 2 are more traditional projects, so doing my grandson's room and doing the, um Storage room for my daughter. I will do these together. The grandson's bedroom will take anywhere from 60 to 90 minutes, probably just 60, and the storage room will take anywhere from 60 minutes to 2 hours, probably 90 minutes. So all said and done, this is going to take 2 and a half hours in the basement, but I'm going to allot 3 hours, and my daughter has pretty good stamina, so she can, she can stick with me. All right, so in this project, when you're thinking about projects like this where you're actually going to go in and change something in a room, you're going to have, uh, you're going to need some new things. You're not just cleaning out, donating, and straightening up what you have. In this case, I need to have some new things for my grandson's room. I'm going to get some of these IKEA cube units from the office that we're not using. I've already ordered the new little bins that are going to go in the cubes for his toys. I've already ordered the new pictures. I need to get the little Velcro for the pictures. I've already contacted the electrician about taking the fan down and putting a different light in. That's not going to happen this weekend, but I've already done it for this project. Um, and I've already ordered his under-the-bed storage, and I've already ordered his pictures. So I have all of the things that I need to do his room except for the cubes from the office. So the Thursday before Labor Day, which I realize you're watching this after— the Thursday before Labor Day, I will have my husband stop by the office and I will put these cubes in his car because it's bigger than mine, and he will take those home. So now I'm ready. I'll have everything I need to do that bedroom. Now for the storage room, also from the office, I need to bring home small bins with lids, and then I need to get the metal bars that you can drill into the studs of the closet that is Abby's storage room so I could put in shelving with brackets. And I need to double-check that I have enough shelves, enough brackets, and I know I need to buy these new bars. So I will do that on either Thursday or Friday after work. Now in the Sunday basket, I have a slash pocket that says Grayson's bedroom, and I have a slash pocket that says storage room. So as I'm coming up with these ideas in my head of things that I want to add to the storage room or things I want to add to Grayson's bedroom being redone, they're all going in one slash pocket. So when I'm ready to sit down like I am right now and plan out that project, I can pull out all the little notes that I have to myself, anything that I've printed out from emails, anything that I've cut out of a magazine, any paint samples I have, any of those. So I love keeping these kinds of projects In the Sunday basket. Okay, so now that I have all of the things that I know I need to do, I'm gonna go on my calendar and I'm gonna put down on Thursday night a little half an hour block to check the inventory for the project. So I'm gonna check that I have these, um, shelves and brackets and anything else I need for the weekend. And then Friday, half an hour— the half an hour after I leave my office and before I get home, I have down to go to Lowe's. and buy whatever else I need for this project, and to have my husband stop by and get these cubes. Now I've got everything I need to put on my weekend calendar for all of my projects. So Friday night, I will not do anything. I will go home and I will have— I will stop at Lowe's, I'll go home, we'll have pizza, I will start the laundry, I'll get my laundry done, and I will, um, Just enjoy the family. I like to get up and get started on projects on Saturday morning. Now currently I work out on Saturday morning, so I will not be doing any projects on Saturday morning because I will be working out. Then the next thing that I will do is, um, when I get home from the gym is I will evaluate my energy level and the energy level of my daughter and my grandchild, and I will decide which project I am going to do. If we're going to go ahead and we're to go do the basement project on Saturday afternoon. I'm gonna say we're probably not, or if we're gonna do that on Sunday. And if I had to guess, I'm gonna say that we're gonna do that project on Saturday— so Sunday. So I'm gonna proactively move that project over to Sunday. Okay, now I'm looking at the other projects that I planned. So after I get back from the gym, I usually have like 90 minutes of— I love to putz around and just get a little bit of housework done. So I'm going to go ahead and put my list of things that I want to do outside, that 90 minutes in the garage, on my first block from 12:30 to 2 on Saturday. Write this down. 12:30 to 2 on Saturday, I'm going to do all those things that I said I was going to do outside. Then that's probably a good time, and 2 o'clock is a great time. My son doesn't even get started till noon, noon. So 2 to 4 is probably a great time to go over to Joey's house on Saturday and check out and see what's going on with his dishwasher and circuit breaker and all of that. Then I'll come back home around 4, 4:30, and, um, I'll see if I have the energy to clean out the kitchen. I will. I'll go ahead and put that down, 4:30 on Saturday. Um, and I'll tell you what, this packing for Chicago is probably not going to happen this weekend at all. Oh, I have Monday. Oh, you do? Oh, I have Monday. Never mind, I'm not doing anything at 4:30. I'm gonna come home and just enjoy the family at 4:30 on Saturday. All right, so I've got my 2 projects for Saturday. Now Sunday, that is going to be the day— Sunday or Monday? Sunday or Monday? Hmm, I think we're gonna do on Saturday. Abby is really excited to do these things in the basement, so we're probably gonna do that. And we will get started— we're gonna get started at 10:30. And this whole project is going to take 2 and a half hours. So 10:30 on Sunday, and I'll just put until 2 o'clock because I don't know how long it'll take us. That's going to be our big project on Sunday. Then Monday we have a couple of things already scheduled, but I definitely have this extra hour to clean out the kitchen and do that kind of thing and pack for Chicago. Yeah, so I'm gonna do that Monday. Monday. Now you can, if you want to, turn these into traditional to-do lists, but here's what I do. I just take little clips like this and I clip them together, and now I have little packets. And on each little packet of index cards that I have— if you're listening on the podcast, I am recording this on YouTube. I am Trying to do video and audio podcasts at the same time. We shall see how I do with that. So now I have my little stacks of projects for Labor Day weekend, and these were going to be Saturday. All right, so I have Saturday 12:30 to 2, Saturday 2 to 4, Sunday 10:30 to 2. That was that same project. And then Monday, an hour and a half, and something to do on Sunday dinner. And I will literally leave these little stacks on my kitchen counter. And let's say I get to Sunday, I'm like, oh, I don't really want to do that whole big, um, project in the basement. Or more likely, I get home from working out on Saturday, I'm like, oh, I'm not really feeling cleaning out the garage today. Then I could move that garage project To Monday because I know I have free time on my calendar on Monday. Here's the key. Number 1, you need to know what the tasks are that you're going to be doing in your project and kind of bundle them together. Number 2, you need to know if any of those tasks need to be done before you get started. Like, do you need the paint? Do you need to get something from the store? Do you need to bring something from somewhere else or borrow something from someone or borrow a tool or whatever so that when you're ready to do the project, you have all of your supplies? So you know what the tasks are, you have all your supplies. And number 3, block it on your calendar. I know it's not sexy. I know people don't love to put everything on their calendar. I know sometimes it can feel really overwhelming if you start to fill up all of your time. You're like, oh my gosh, I don't want— I don't want my time to feel so, uh, you know, I want more freedom in my time. I want more, uh, to see more white space on my calendar. I don't want to see where all of my time went on my calendar. That's fine. That's great. And if you're really, really good at time management and all your projects get done on time, and you literally walk around your house, you go, everything's done here, I don't even know what I would do if I, if I had a project to do, then that's great. But if you're constantly feeling like, I never have enough time, I don't know where my time goes, I don't know how I'm going to get this project done, I don't know if I have enough time to complete this project if I start it, then the main thing is to put it on your calendar. Here's why. You know, when you spend cash, it's painful because if you have $100 in cash and you want to spend it 3 different ways, you literally can't because when you hand the cash over, the cash is gone, right? That's the problem with using credit cards. Sometimes you can overspend what you have because you were able to spend it in 2 different ways because you used a card instead of physical cash. That's what happens with your time. In your mind, it's like a credit card. You can spend your time however you want, and you can spend it in multiple ways. But when you have to put it on a calendar, or when you document on a calendar how you spent your time, you can only spend it one way. You can't use it 2 different ways. You can only do it one way. And as long as you are not writing it on a calendar proactively or retroactively, then you can, I guess, pretend that you were able to spend that same time 2 different ways. Or more likely, you're only spending your time one way, obviously, because that's all you're able to do. But in your mind, you think you have more time than you do. And this is what was happening to me. I thought I had more time than I did, and I wasn't putting it on the calendar. I didn't think things took as long as they actually took. And then I would get to the end of the day or the month or the year, whatever, and I would be so defeated. And I would think to myself, ah, what's the matter with me? Why can't I get this done? How come I get to the end of the day and I still have this to-do list and hardly anything has checked off this list, but I've been working all day long. And it's a couple of things. One, you weren't noticing the things that were in the last episode, all of the little tasks that you were doing 5, 10, 15 minutes all day long, all week long. All these little things are getting done, but they were never even on your to-do list. You're doing them as quick as you can instead of writing them down so that you make sure that they get them done, and you're not accounting for the amount of time that they take. When you go ahead and batch them and put them in the Sunday basket, and do it in 90 minutes every week. Yeah, it takes time, but now you can see that time because the time is in the Sunday basket. Then if you want to do a project, number one, you can do a project because you're not doing all the little tasks. And number two, you will get better and better and better at understanding how long things take. I definitely should do a podcast on how long things take. I think when you start using your calendar at first, let's just go into that, how long things take. You should start guessing. How long do you think it's going to take you to make dinner? How long do you think it's going to take you to work on that project? How long do you think it takes you to go to the grocery store, get your groceries, go to the grocery store, make your list? You know, how much does all that food preparation time take you? Yeah, we don't want to know how long it takes us. It's kind of depressing and demoralizing to know how much time we're spending in housework, but also it's a little bit freeing. And the way it's freeing is that Once you realize that some of your time is already accounted for, like you have to shower and get dressed, you have to make all of your meals and clean up, and you have to clean the toilets, and you have to— like, there are things that we're going to do no matter what. Well, once you realize that that time is allocated, kind of like our school hours were allocated, or if you work outside of the home, your work hours are allocated, then you're left with what is left. And in planning day, we do this time pies analogy where I walk people through seeing where their time is going. And 2 things happen. Number one, some people realize, oh, I see why none of this is working. I'm literally out of time. Like, if you are in full-time caregiving and you're full-time working, like, good luck. Like, you also have housework. Like, yeah, you're out of time. You are out of time. You are not imagining it. You are out of time. But also what happens, some people realize, oh wow, I had more time than I thought I had. It's just in pockets of the day in which it's not productive time for me. And/or people do planning day over and over and over again, and they get into their second year of planning days and they go, okay, when I started planning day, I didn't even know where my time went and I didn't have any time. And now I know where my time goes and I'm starting to get pockets of time. And you'd be much more proactive with your time. It's like having cash envelopes for your money This is looking at where your time is going. So wherever you are on the continuum, from you've been doing Organized 365 for a decade, you know how long things take, everything is calendared, you do the Sunday basket every single Sunday, and you've been in planning days since it originated, to you've just found this podcast, you're like, oh my gosh, I didn't even think about how I'm spending time different ways, like a credit card instead of like paying cash. Take the next step. What is the next step for you? Is it just what we did in the last episode, which was writing down every single thing that is in your mind so that you can start to have the capacity for even thinking about and moving around these tasks? Or have you gotten really good at doing the tasks on Sunday and you know that the Sunday basket organizes projects, but the projects just live in the Sunday basket and they never jump out and get onto your calendar? You're like, oh, okay. When you heard my projects here, I have 7. I'm looking, I have 7 projects here. So cleaning out the kitchen was an hour, packing was a half an hour. The 2 that I grouped together that are going to take 3 hours are my grandson's bedroom and, um, doing that storage room. The 90 minutes of cleaning out the garage, taking down the wreath and changing the, the swings on the swing set. And then the 2 hours to go over to my son's and back. Those are all different projects, and you're doing all these things too. Maybe, maybe that's the breakthrough— thinking about everything that you do is a project. And calendaring the things that we do at home, even though we're not paid for them, they're not work, and we're not accountable to somebody else, or not a meeting or a school appointment or something like that, or something related to somebody we're caregiving for— like, how we spend our time is how we spend our time. If you do budgeting and you figure out like where all of your money goes and making sure it's going in all the different categories, that's kind of doing what we're doing with our time. We are calendar blocking on the calendar all of the different things we do. And of course, you know, I color code mine based on what they are related to. Some of you are like, okay, how would you color code this? I can tell you exactly how I would color code this. The project that I'm doing with my daughter that's going to take 3 hours. I have a color that is devoted to her and her kids, so I would put that on that color. Um, doing the garage and the front door, that's housework, so I would color that purple. My daughter's color is a teal blue. My son, I would put that on my calendar in red. His color is red. Packing for Chicago, that's for me personally, that's light pink. Cleaning out the kitchen cabinet is housework, that is purple. And then this Um, ordering those Tovala meals for my grand— my dog— oh my goodness, my mother-in-law. Food is orange, so I put that on orange on my calendar, but it's in a calendar block already that is, um, a medium blue, which is a family color. So that dinner is always on our calendar for 2, 2 and a half hours, is a family color. And then I'll put in there another half an hour appointment to do the Tovala meals. So that I'll remember because I don't have to do it every single Sunday. I do it every second or third Sunday, so that'll remind me when I'm planning out on Sunday. I do my Sunday basket time in the morning. I'll see that, and then I'll pull out the computer, and I'll be ready when she comes over to make sure that we get those tavala meals ordered. You may say, well, if she comes over and you order them, why would you put it on your calendar? And I put it on my calendar for two reasons. Number one. Seeing it orange on the calendar reminds me, and I don't have to remember if this is a week we order Tuvala meals or not. And secondly, I'm the only one that does this for my mother-in-law. So if we're sick, she's sick, I'm gonna be out of town, whatever, and I see that on the calendar, then I need to figure out how to get her meals ordered for her. Do I have to go a different day over to her house? Now it's going to be a 1-hour task. Am I actually going to go there, order the meals, and come back? Um, once I was going to be out of town, and so I sat at the office and I screenshot every single page of that website And printed them out and stapled them and sent them with my husband, and she circled the ones she wanted. She liked ordering them that way, by the way, uh, but it took me too much time, so I can't do that every time. But that is an option. That task has to get done or my mother-in-law doesn't have dinner meals. That's a problem, right? We all know I'm not going to be cooking them for her. So those tasks take real time, and when I task stack it when she's already coming over for Sunday dinner, it's just, you know, 10 minutes while she's at our house. But if she doesn't come over and it's time to make those meals, then it becomes an hour of me driving over, doing them, usually an hour and a half round trip to get that done instead of just a 10 or 15 minute activity when she's at our house. Okay, so, so far in this podcast series, we've talked about why I think that the Sunday basket, doing those tasks on Sunday in 90 minutes, frees up 5 hours per week that you can use for projects or whatever else you need your time for, especially if you are negative time right Now, we talked about what tasks are in the last episode, and in this one we talked about how tasks become projects and what projects are. Next week we are going to be talking about thinking time and how that is a completely different time, and I want us all to have a lot more of it.