Joseph Phillips: Creating the Best Project of Your Life

You are a project manager. You know what it takes to get things done. You work smart and you work hard. You create charts, schedule, plans, and deliverables. You are a person of action. You plan. Achieve. Close. And then it’s onto to the next assignment. It’s what you do.

Project management is an exciting career: it’s creative, it’s exhilarating, and it’s like running your own business for the duration of the project. While that’s good, you’ve a life beyond the confines and constraints of project management. I’m sure you’ve objectives and ambition you want to accomplish in your life and even in 2010.

You are more than a project manager, but project management is what you do.

Creating Balance

In project management we talk about keeping time, cost, and scope in balance – the Iron Triangle of Project Management. You know this, right? If any angle of the Iron Triangle is out of balance the project will be skewed. Is that so different in our lives? Just as we need balance in projects we need balance in our lives. Balance in all areas is the equilibrium that life demands.

Do you have goals for yourself? Do you have joy? Passion? Is all the project management work grinding away at your motivation and ambition for the next step in life? Have you identified a next step in life? Are you sick of processes, bored with tools and techniques, and just want some peace and simplicity in exchange for the complications of project management?

Projects can crush your motivation, drain your time, and flood your thoughts and dreams so you can’t think of anything but what needs to be done next. While you take pride in your project endeavors they can also rob you of the joy you deserve in your life.

Balance in all areas of life is good for our mental wellbeing, our spiritual health, and even for our friends and family. But how to achieve balance when there are so many demands, so many distractions, and so many obligations demanding our time? Here’s the simple truth: you cannot do everything. In order to achieve balance you need to establish priorities, harmony among objectives, and define what you want in need in your life. You’ll likely need to slice things out of your life and other add other factors to create counterpoise.

Balance isn’t based on project management – it’s the other way around.

Establishing Goals

In project management it’s important to define in exact and agreeable terms what the project is to create. There should be no ambiguity about what the project will create and what the stakeholders will receive as a result of your creation.

Goal setting works the same. In order to create powerful goals you must first define what it is you want. Then use the project management approach of progressive elaboration to refine the specifics that you want into and out of your life. By creating specific goals, just like you do in project management, you’ll find the path to achievement becomes illuminated.

I highly recommend SMART goals in project management planning and in your life:

Specific – define your goals in specific terms

Measurable – define metrics to gauge your progress and identify key performance indicators

Attainable – make certain your goal is attainable in the time constraint you create

Realistic – your goals should be realistic, relevant, and inspiring

Timetable – you need a plan to define when your goals will be achieved based on the work to get there

Establishing a goal is a great first step, but you’ll need to plan how you’ll achieve the goals you create. Use what you know from project management to leverage your goal planning, but don’t cut corners. Your life is more important than your career so give your goals the respect and ambition they demand.

Finding Passion

When you create your goals measure your excitement. If you’re not passionate about your goals you probably won’t achieve them. Passion is the intense, heart-pounding desire that consumes your actions, thoughts, and motivation to achieve. You need to kindle your passion for the objectives you’d defined –  get excited!

It’s easy to be excited when a project (or a goal) is initiated, but without steady passion the excitement fades and the project can become despised. When you create your goals write them down on paper and record your excitement and thrill associated with the goal. Document why the goal is important to you and how you’ll feel once you achieve that goal. Link today’s passion with tomorrow’s work.

Create Joy

Do you have joy? I’m not talking about fleeting happiness, but long-lasting joy in your life. What gives you joy and how can you get more of it? Does project management give you joy? I doubt it. I bet you get your joy based on your passion, your love, the things you enjoy doing, and the important people in your life.

Joy is what feeds your passion and can keep you through the tough times, the hard work, and the anticipation of gratification. It’s so important to have joy in your life to have balance. When you create your goals and when you execute the plans to achieve your goals do it joyfully.

Project managers can be a serious bunch as they have stress, politics, and pressure on their shoulders all the time. Joy can ease the burden. Joy can give you energy. Joy can help ease the pain of projects. Determine what gives you joy and then determine to get more of it in your life.

The Lifelong Project

What if you treated the next year of your life like a project? That’s a question I asked myself years ago and nothing has been the same for me since. No, your life and my life are not projects, but you can use the principles of project management to achieve goals, find passion, and create joy.

In project management there must be a purpose to launch a project. Is life so different? All projects begin with a vision: a mental image of how the current status can be changed into some distant future status. Do you have a vision for your life? What characteristics of your life need improvement, removal, or addition? What are you looking for? Use what you know from project management to create the best project of your life.

Joseph Phillips, PMP, is the author of The Lifelong Project a book about using the principles of project management to achieve goals, find passion, and create joy. Phillips has also written several other books on project management and business. You can find out more about The Lifelong Project at www.lifelongproject.com.

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Related posts:

1. Joseph Phillips: Defining the Project Life Cycle
2. Joseph Phillips, PMP: Creating the Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)
3. Joseph Phillips, PMP: Detailing the Project Scope

December 27th, 2009 | Category: General

3 comments to Joseph Phillips: Creating the Best Project of Your Life

• ahadi cahya pratama

  January 4th, 2010 at 5:55 am

  SO INSPIRING..

• pmhubadmin

  January 4th, 2010 at 6:22 pm

  Glad you like this article. Terima kasih atas kunjungannya

• Joseph Phillips

  January 5th, 2010 at 12:07 pm

  I’m so glad you enjoyed the article. Come by my website, blog.lifelongproject.com, for more. Best in all your projects,

  Joseph Phillips

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