Start way smaller, get quick, clear wins, and iterate. Start with multiple successful (micro) projects per day. Finish 100+ in a month with a not-decisive-clear-success rate under 10%.
Oh! I’m already doing some quick, clear wins! For example, I recently did a mini-project like the Atom example in the post, where I learned some basics of Visual Studio Code.
Questions/Comments (these are more statements of what I'm thinking than questions addressed to anyone):
The suggestion is that we practice writing down the steps for mini-projects. Normally I’d plan the steps unconsciously. For instance, when learning about VSC, I didn’t try to save a file before downloading the program because I knew which came first. But I could write the steps down if I thought about it. Should I stop what I’m doing to write down steps before doing them? Would it be just as good to write them down in retrospect, like in this Write Down Projects idea?
Will writing down the steps for projects where I already know what the steps are help me learn to figure out what the steps are in projects where the steps aren’t obvious to me? Those seem like they could be different kinds of thinking. Or maybe not.
Writing down steps for a project is a subset of doing all the things in this Doing a Project post. It seems like it would be easier to practice just writing down steps before trying to practice that plus all the other things (brainstorming goals, thinking critically about the goals, brainstorming solutions, thinking critically about the solutions, considering resources, considering ways the project may fail, evaluating whether the project worked).
I am scared of eventually trying to plan out a whole big project with all its little steps in the right order. That seems hard. In my example of learning about VSC, I didn’t start my learning that day even knowing about VSC, let alone wanting to learn how to use it. I was watching a video about something else and the guy in the video was using VSC and it looked like it could be useful. So I looked it up and then decided to try it out. Should I eventually be able to sit down and plan out hundreds of mini-projects like that, leading, in organized steps, to one big goal? For now, what I do is have some vague goal in my mind (like learning more about computer stuff) and then look for opportunities to do mini-projects that seem like they’d help towards that goal.
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Elliot
I am scared of eventually trying to plan out a whole big project with all its little steps in the right order.
I don't think I said to do that anywhere.
If you have mastery of a particular task or sub-project, you don't need to write out all the steps for it.
What level of detail to write for what is a judgment call, and you'll improve at using good judgment with, as usual, practice/experience plus thought. And it's the practice/experience part that you and most people here currently need more of.
Judgment is always needed about how to allocate finite organizational effort in the infinite sea of possible organizational steps.
Goldratt said that even for complex multi-billion dollar projects like building an offshore oil drilling platform, the project plan shouldn't have more than 300 parts max. (IIRC he was talking about PERT charts.)
If you start with projects that you can plan successfully and then work your way up, you'll figure it out better. Right now you're having trouble due to trying to imagine what you'll do when you're an expert. But that's too far away from your current knowledge or experience, so you're not thinking about it effectively.
I don't think I said to do that anywhere.
If you have mastery of a particular task or sub-project, you don't need to write out all the steps for it.
What level of detail to write for what is a judgment call, and you'll improve at using good judgment with, as usual, practice/experience plus thought. And it's the practice/experience part that you and most people here currently need more of.
Judgment is always needed about how to allocate finite organizational effort in the infinite sea of possible organizational steps.
Goldratt said that even for complex multi-billion dollar projects like building an offshore oil drilling platform, the project plan shouldn't have more than 300 parts max. (IIRC he was talking about PERT charts.)
If you start with projects that you can plan successfully and then work your way up, you'll figure it out better. Right now you're having trouble due to trying to imagine what you'll do when you're an expert. But that's too far away from your current knowledge or experience, so you're not thinking about it effectively.