Hi friends!

I’ve been thinking a lot about project management lately. As you may know, I accidentally fell into PM work as part of my editorial job way back in the day and as it turns out, there are a lot more opportunities for project managers than there are for editors. Go figure!

When I first started my book coaching business, my mentor Jennie Nash encouraged me to lean into these skills as part of my coaching toolkit.  I had left my full-time PM job in 2016, being totally burned out on the gig (despite loving the company I was working for). Even 4 years later, I wasn’t ready to dip my toes back into those waters, no matter how much it might have helped me.

But fate and finances drove me back into project management, part-time, and being back in the fray has me finally ready to leverage those skills and tools for writing and coaching.

As we all do, I have approximately 12 million irons in the fire right now and my neurodiverse brain can be

Here are some tips from PM world that can help you manage your time and make the immensely complicated endeavor that is writing a novel feel less daunting:

• Break big things into bite-sized chunks

It’s all too easy to get overwhelmed by the big goals, intentions, or priorities that we want to achieve. Conversely, it might be that you have outsized expectations for how much work is involved or how much time it will take to complete it. 

Take that big goal or project and break it down in a way that works for you. Most projects have more than one phase and many things within each phase that need to get done. Some of those things can stand alone; others will depend on prerequisite tasks (x needs to happen before y can). 

Drilling down on tasks in each stage into things that can be completed in a few hours, days, or within a week can help you see tangible progress. It can also help give you a realistic sense of how long the bigger project or goal will take.

• Make frequent space for adjustments

I’m not sure how it took me 40-something years to really internalize this one, but failing to follow a plan doesn’t mean YOU are a failure. It means the plan didn’t work for you. 

Tweaking something that isn’t working is far more productive than beating yourself up for not adhering to it week after week—and expecting that this next week is going to be the magic week that it all comes together.

In my PM job, I tell my clients that if I ever work on a project that runs exactly according to plan from start to finish, I’ll retire. It hasn’t happened in the almost 20 years I’ve been doing this and I doubt it ever will. 

Adjusting a plan might be a little stressful in the short term but you will also sleep better at night because you know that the plan reflects the new reality.  

• Tap into a support network

I’ve mentioned before that I’m an Obliger (one of Gretchen Rubin’s Four Tendencies), which means that I respond to external expectations much better than to the internal expectations I set for myself. It’s one of my least favorite things, but rather than mourn something that I don’t know to change, I am trying to figure out how to make it work for me.

A huge part of that is asking certain people to hold me accountable to things. I have a weekly writing date and we set a goal for what we want to get done in the interim. I have meetings with fellow coaches to talk about progress in our businesses. My husband is charged with making sure I go for walks. 🙂

If you are someone who responds well to external expectations, find those folks that can hold you accountable (in a gentle way - be sure not to choose folks whose best intentions might feel judgmental rather than supportive). 

If you are someone who is internally motivated, teach me your superpower! (Just kidding, sort of.) Make sure you are carving out the space you need in order to put your plan in motion; ask your support system to help you if needed. Vocalizing why this work matters can be helpful for you and them.

• Make your successes visible

This one is on repeat and shows no signs of stopping—because so many people I talk to (myself included) don’t acknowledge all the things that get done every darn day. That’s where those bite-sized actions can really help. 

Did you finish your draft today? Probably not. But did you write for 10 minutes or generate 1000 words, putting yourself that much closer to that BIG day? Take a moment and allow yourself to feel some satisfaction. Post about it, if that’s your thing. Mark it off on a calendar, fill in a cell on a spreadsheet, transfer that task to your “To-Done” list. (Thanks to Terri Thayer for that one!) Seeing those small things add up to a big one is motivating!

As part of all this thinking I’ve been doing, I’m developing some project management tools to share that I hope will help writers formalize some process to allow for all the creative energy to flow into their words. Watch this space! 

And let me know if you have any project management questions or things that you’d like to know more about. After so many years, a lot of it feels second nature to me and I can assume that everyone knows what I know. I’m here to help!

Now get cracking! 😉

Cheers ♥️,
Kerry