MBA1324 How to Stay Motivated with Large Projects

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I know with our software webinar Ninja, we're currently working on a project that we've been working on for 18 months. We're nearing the end of this project, but when you're in the midst of a long project, something that is going to take some time, it's sometimes hard to stay motivated when the finish line is unclear or so far away. Our brains are not conditioned to see a finish line that's sort of nebulous by nature. We feel like, you know, five, six, seven months is a long time when in reality six months just passed the end flew by. Staying motivated Every step of the way of a long project is so important because it allows you to stay focused, it allows you to stay on point and keeps your eye on the prize. Often people quit too early in a project, they give up, they pivot too early, and they don't get to reap the benefits of all their hard work. So in today's lesson, I'm going to give you some strategies on how to stay motivated, how to organize your project so you're feeling pumped up every time you work on it, every week until it's delivered. Whether you're writing a book, creating a new course, launching a new website, or launching a whole new business, there's something in today's episode for you. So let's get into it. Let's get down to business. When you're looking at a large project, something that's gonna take you some time to complete, months, the first thing I want you to do is take a look at what you're working on. Let's say you're creating a whole new course that you're gonna sell and the first thing you're gonna do is you're going to minimize the scope of the project as much as possible. One of the best ways to stay motivated is to shorten the amount of time as much as possible. Some of us, we just keep everything open ended and it never ends. So what we're trying to do here is what's called a minimal viable product. What is the minimal version of your product? You can always improve it once you launch, you can always make it better. But a lot of people, they don't create an mvp, they don't minimize the scope of a project and it never actually gets done because again, it's open ended and it goes on and on and on. So take a look at whatever it is. So in this example, a course, what's the minimal viable version of this course? In order for you to actually deliver value to your customers, does it need to be 40 videos? Maybe. Maybe it can be 15. In fact, when it comes to content, brevity is actually more impactful, more powerful. If you can teach me something in 15 videos or in 5 hours versus 15 hours, I rather take the shorter version. So this is just an example, but whatever your project is, whatever you're working on, take a look at it and try to trim the fat as much as possible. Be brutal, as much is this necessary to deliver win to my customer? Can they get what they're looking for, their desired outcome? If I cut this, cut that. By minimizing it, you're going to change the scope and you're going to also minimize the time it takes to complete. This is a good Starting point number two, you're going to take your project, whatever it is, let's say it's an online course and you're going to break it up into mini projects. And when I say many, you might be saying, well, how many? Well, at least in one week chunks, projects that will last no longer than a week. Now, a week is relative. You may have 10 hours to dedicate every week on this project. You may have 40, you may have 50, but I want you to break up the project into week sprints or milestones. So by the end of week one, you're going to outline and script your lessons. Week two, you're going to shoot the first half of lessons. Week three, the second half. Week four, you're going to edit the lessons. Week five, you're gonna start creating the website for this new course. Six, upload the content. You get the point? You're gonna break down the project into smaller milestones, smaller projects. And then within those one week projects, you wanna have a goal for each day. So say, for example, you're gonna be working on it five days a week, every day you should have a singular goal. Like, I need to finish the script for videos one through three. This is when it's really important to be productive. I recommend you use a tool called Trello. It's absolutely free. It has these great boards where you can organize ideas and get things done. You can move things from one column to another when you get them completed. So again, you have your project, you're going to break it down into one week mini projects. And each day you're going to work on that project in the week you have a goal. Now, the reason why we're doing this is because you need to get some wins under your belt. You need to feel a sense of satisfaction, a sense of accomplishment. The problem is that many people don't break things down and therefore they only feel good when the project's over. And many of us don't make it because we feel so bad about not accomplishing anything. Because you only have one goal. Finish the whole project by breaking it up into smaller projects. Every day, every week, you're feeling like you're a winner. You're feeling like you're getting things done. You feel like you're getting closer to the finish line. You see the progress, but if you don't break it up, you won't see the progress, you won't see the timeline, and you won't feel good about your accomplishments or your progress. Number three, one of the best ways to stay motivated as you progress through a long project is to share the process. This could be something as simple as shooting a quick video at the end of the week. It could be two minutes, say, hey, this is my week. This is what I did, this is my progress. And you share it with your friends and your connections on social media. Super simple. This is only just to feel like you're being accountable to a crowd as well as it motivates you to share your accomplishments every week. You can do this in a blog post form as well. You can publish a blog post every week giving people, you know, an update on things people love seeing behind the curtains of a business, seeing how things are done and you by sharing the journey, they really get invested in what you're building and will be interested in buying it when it's ready. Documenting the process can be a lot of work if you allow it to take a lot of time. So keep it simple. Do something easy for you. If you like video, just flip on the camera on your phone and shoot that video and share it straight to social, unedited. Don't worry about it. The point here is not to video market here. The point here is to get motivated and share the experience with other people. If you love to write, then blogging is your choice. If you love audio, then why not do a miniseries, a podcast where you record an episode, a short episode every week and you share your experience. If you're building this project or doing this project with other people, this could be a discussion. It's fantastic. For the audio format as well as video, my next tip is essential and a lot of people forget this. And it's to celebrate small wins. Set yourself up for some sort of reward. Every week you accomplish what you set out to accomplish. If you hit that milestone, if you did what you set out to do for that week in that mini project, you should reward yourself. You need to feel good about what you did. You need to reward yourself and feel like you accomplished your goal. You're getting closer. It doesn't have to be something extravagant. It could be something small, like going out for ice cream or a somewhat fancy lunch or a night out of the movies with that special someone in your life. You don't have to spend a lot of money. It doesn't have to be this big extravagant thing. But you should treat yourself and reward yourself in some way. It could be something as simple as giving yourself one hour alone in the park to read your favorite book. The point here is that you want to reward your accomplishments. And here's a secret. We're doing these things anyway. We all tend to go out to eat sometimes, or go to the movies or go get an ice cream. But instead of just doing them randomly, do them as rewards for accomplishing your goals. And make it known. If you're sharing your house, your residence with other people, let them know what you're doing and have them join in on the fun.

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All right, let me recap the tips I have for you to stay motivated with a large project. Number one, you want to minimize the scope as much as possible. Think of minimal, viable product. What is the minimal version of what I'm trying to accomplish for my customer? Number two, have micro projects, a weekly project that you need to accomplish and then a daily goal that you are setting out to do every day. Number three, share your progress. Share the journey with your audience. That accountability motivates you to keep going. And lastly, celebrate small wins. Don't forget to insert a little bit of joy every time you accomplish something. Every time you accomplish that weekly goal. Now remember, if you don't accomplish that goal, if you don't hit that milestone then you shouldn't celebrate. You shouldn't go out for that ice cream. You got to endure the sour to enjoy the sweet. Metaphorically and literally. Well, there you have it. That wraps up today's episode. If you love what you hear, drop us a rating and review on itunes where we read every single review. It's a great way to support the show and let others know why you love our podcast so much. Share your favorite episode, your favorite takeaway, why you listen to it every day. That's it for me today guys. But before I go, I want to leave you with this. A lot of people ask me, why is it so hard to manage big projects? Well, for many of us, we're just not used to it. We're coming from a job or a career where everything is prescribed to us. We're giving exactly what we have to do every day. And managing large, large projects that will run for an extended period of time is not something that we're used to doing. So it's a skill you have to build. But these strategies really help you get some momentum and get used to it. Thank you so much for listening and I'll check you in tomorrow's episode Q and A Wednesday. I'll see you then. Take care.

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