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Can you remember times when your personal productivity has been ineffective?

Maybe, you have been given a large project to deliver and, at first, you are excited.

Then, you suddenly realise how complex or large the project actually is and you become overwhelmed at the sheer scope of time and effort required. Have you experienced that?

If so, like many others, you’re not alone. Managing large, complex, big budget projects can be very challenging. Now imagine managing 3 or 4 such projects, at the same time. Doesn’t that make you feel stressed?

But there are many who can just take managing all this work, in their stride. They flourish in such situations. You might know someone like this.

But do they work harder than you?

Perhaps not.

Are they more gifted than you?

Certainly not.

Yet, they are calm, they embrace the challenge and nine times out of ten, always deliver.

So they don’t necessarily work harder than you and they are no more gifted than you…but they do something differently, don’t they?

They task manage! They use the simple concept of Task Management.

No matter how large or complex the project or the timescales involved, every project can be broken down into smaller, easily managed tasks. Then as each of these smaller tasks are delivered and completed, it contributes towards the overall end completion of the project.

The secret to successful Task Management is diligence, consistency and flexibility.

You have to consistently check each task is being delivered as planned and put in actions to overcome any obstacles or problems that arise.

One thing I can guarantee: the unexpected.

Something unexpected will arise and that’s when you need flexibility. You may have to stop a task in order to resolve the unexpected situation. You may have to start a task earlier than you expect. With flexible scheduling and a willingness to adapt to these unforeseen barriers, the project itself will continue while you explore options to resolve them.

Those whom excel at project management do so because they are able to work in such a way that each and every day they make progress on one or more of the smaller tasks involved. And even more importantly, they do not procrastinate on problems. As soon as problems arise, the actions to resolve the problem are agreed. No hoping the problem will just go away on its own.

It is for this very reason that project managers are often able to take on multiple projects simultaneously and not become stressed over their workload. Managing several projects at once actually breaks up the monotony of working on one single thing at any given time. It provides a way for you to step back from each project for a short time and then resume it the next day with a fresh perspective.

The project manager can (and must) never lose sight of the overall project itself but by focusing on smaller tasks and Task Management, careful scheduling, consistency and flexibility in how we approach our work, we can easily increase our Personal Productivity without becoming stressed about our individual workloads.

Achieve Planner makes it very easy to create and use checklists with “project templates.” Just create a special project to serve as your checklist and use the tasks as the steps or items in the checklist. I recommend adding a special prefix (like CL for checklist or TP for template) to  make them easier to find.

You can download your free 30-day trial of Achieve Planner here:

Achieve Planner