This past week was pretty typical of the last 8 or so: complete chaos.  For about the last 2 months, I have been working on several projects at once.  We are blessed to be very busy right now and because of that, many of us at J&R have been working on multiple projects at once out of necessity.  We do it because it helps our customers (at least in the short term).  I hate doing it, though.  I hate it because when I work on multiple projects at the same time, the absolute first thing that I sacrifice in order to make progress with each thread on which I work is my planning.  I end up being so spread out that I jump in and handle the urgent issue du jour.  As I write this (and probably as you read this), it is blazingly obvious that it is a mistake.  For the last 2 months I have been worrying about the short-term urgency and neglecting the long-term big picture.

Then, on Thursday, my mistake hit me in the face.  I was about to attend a status meeting for a project in which I was expected to be a key player. Not only did I not have any status to report on my assigned tasks, I didn't really know what they were or where they fit into the grand scheme of the whole project.  I had ignored emails about the project for the last 2 months because it never made it to the radar of the day's emergencies.  I didn't even realize that I didn't know any of this until Jeff told me this was case and  snapped me out of my fog (I hope).

On Thursday, it all hit me at once; I have sacrificed what is most important for what is least.  I am thankful that Jeff was there to gently remind me of that (more gently than I deserved, to be honest).  I let the pressures of my "important" projects cause me to forget the simplest of project management principles: plan.  And I realized I was doing it even after reading Bryan's piece and thinking about how good his advice was!

As you can imagine, this is embarrassing for me.  For many of the projects I am involved with, I am one of the project leaders.  I also subscribe heavily to Stephen Covey's 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.  In fact, in the last 2 weeks, I provided this book to 2 consultants in my group and I read it again myself!  So many themes in that book are relevant: 

• Never let what matters most be at the mercy of what matters least
• Life is a program, and I am the programmer.
• Be proactive
• Begin with the End in Mind
• Put First Things First

In Covey's parlance, I let tasks that were urgent but unimportant trump tasks that were important but not urgent.  The result is that for a few weeks, I was able to make progress on some urgent work, but I ended up neglecting other work that had to be done (including writing blogs!).

The resolution is crystal clear for me:  I need to be in charge of my schedule.  I need to schedule my planning activities in advance and follow-through on the plans that I make.  Covey recommends doing this in week-long blocks so that when the inevitable unexpected issues come along, you can still achieve your plans.  He also recommends having integrity at the time of decision, meaning that when the urgent but unimportant tasks come at you, you have to have the integrity to stand by your plans and not get derailed.  That is my goal going forward.

So, thank you Bryan and thank you Jeff for reminding me about the first step towards success.