Consuelo Meux, Ph.D.

When you need to make an important, high-level decision, give yourself the time needed to make a wise decision.  Allocate ample time to think about, identify, discuss, and ponder all feasible alternatives that are available to you. 

In the fast paced Internet environment, consumers are often coerced into making instant decisions.  It’s often promoted that a real decision-maker makes a decision.  Be careful of this thinking.  Much of the time it can be a slick ploy to make you spend money on whatever program is being offered.  There are “one-time-offer” (OTO) concepts used to make consumers believe they only have one chance to make a particular purchase. You find these type of offers because the merchants know that if you take time to think about the offer, you’ll more than likely refuse to make the purchse.

Rushing a deicison doesn’t make you a great decision maker; it makes you worried if you made a good decision or not. It might make you get involved with a scam and increase your buyers remorse.  Take your time when making a decision to be sure you know what you’re deciding on.  Get all the facts and information you need.  Generate alternatives to the information and decide according to what’s best in any circumstance. 

On the other hand it could be a good decision. However, a good rule of thumb is if it’s only here today and gone tomorrow, it might be best to let it go. If you rush through the conceptualization and definition phase, it is likely that customers will propose new activities that they want to later add to your project plan. At the conclusion of the conceptualization and definition stage, you should define the preliminary project objective. 

Project management exists because of the need to create something that does not exist or to create something better for what does exist.  When you are coming up with project management ideas, you want to let your best creative concepts flow. 

Take time to honor the process that occurs during a conceptualization phase. This is when you conceptualize an idea and generate project concepts.  Don’t put a stop on your imagination. Instead, let you imagination run wild in an attempt to find an innovative solution to the need that demanded a project in the first place. 

Use the idea conception time to do real brainstorming. That means you refuse to place a judgement on any ideas that are generated. Don’t worry about “how” your going to get the project done, just come up with the ideas. When you start trying to figure out the details, you stop the creative process and often fall back into mundane ways of thinking. You could easily forget to push forward to generate more ideas and select something before you’re ready to do so. Just think of the project and start letting the ideas flow. 

Are you getting ready to put a project together?  Project managment is one of the most important skills a creative person can have. Unfortunately, understanding project managment seems to be less than common practice in many instances. Instead of doing the necessary planning to have a successful project, lots of creative types rush into the doing part prior to completing necessary steps to planning. 

In order to determine a project concept, an initial step for planning includes letting your mind do its creative work through brainstorming.  You want to do some breakthrough thinking. That is, take the time to generate ideas that are new, innovative and can take your project to a new level. 

Generating creative ideas through a creative thinking session results in unique concepts that will go unnoticed without the benefit of a creative thinking session. You want to have as many unique and original solutions for a situation as possible which will let you come up with innovative project concepts.  Breakthough thinking is also known as nonlinear thinking. This means that the ideas you generate don’t follow conventional paths and sometimes seem to defy logic. Start your project management with good creative thinking processes to enhance you chances of ultimate success. 

Project management means dealing with a lot of tasks and a lot of people in a concentrated period of time. Get into the habit of creating a usable to-do list to keep on track to reaching your daily goals and get through all of the tasks that need to be completed.

The main thing is to create a to-do list that gets used. How many times have you started a to-do list only to leave it laying on your desk incomplete and never to look at it again, at least not until you find it buried under the 20 other to-do lists you never finished?  To-do lists are a project managers friend and here are a few tips for making the most of yours.

1.  Create your list BEFORE your day gets started.  You can do this at the end of the previous day or first thing each day, but don’t start on anything until you’ve created your list.

2.  Prioritize items on your list.  Sometimes putting tasks in order of importance isn’t an easy task, so first just jot down everything you know you need to do and then go back over and number each item, starting with 1, in order of priority.

3.  Follow your list in order.  Once you have your list prioritized don’t devate from that list by jumping around to things further down the list until the tasks above are complete.

4.  Allow for changes.  Don’t get down on yourself if something pops up in your day that you have to incorporate into your list.  Simply, add it, do it and then keep moving down your original list.

5.  Mark items complete.  By checking off items on your list as you complete them you will see yourself making progress and at the end of the day you will feel a sense of accomplishment.  Even if you don’t complete everything on your list, it’s ok you can still look back and say “I DID get this done today!”

6.  Be reasonable.  You know there are only so many hours in a day, so don’t overload your list with tasks that you know good and well will take more time than you have available.

7.  Be as detailed as possible.  Don’t overload your list, but also don’t forget the smaller tasks throughout the day that will take time away from other bigger duties.

8.  Keep your to-list in sight at all times.  By keeping your list out from under papers, books, etc. it will be a reminder that you have a plan and that plan is going to help you move forward with your business.

9.  Throw it away at the end of the day.  At the end of each day, transfer any unfinished tasks to the next day’s to-do list and throw the current day’s list in the garbage can.  Seeing multiple incomplete to-do lists lying around all the time is not good on your self-esteem, so say sayonara at the end of everyday.

A to-do list is one thing no project manager should start their day without.  Planning is crucial to reaching your project goals and the better prepared you are for each day, the more you’ll accomplish.  You’ll also give yourself a well deserved boost each time you can cross off something on your to-do list.