Tuesday, June 13, 2006

Project-managing the wedding

I attended a project management seminar today at work and instead of thinking about how it would apply to my job, I thought of ways to apply it for my wedding. :) I learned to set realistic daily/weekly goals so that you don't feel overwhelmed (if you don't accomplish a task it will stay in your subconscious, stressing you out; so it's best to set goals you can reach). In order to start anew without the lingering undone tasks is to do a 'data dump' where you make a gigantic master to-do list and then break that down. One practical way that the speaker gave to carry this out is to write out every task you can think of on Post-Its. Then you arrange them on a board or wall; the beauty of the Post-Its is that it can be rearranged multiple times so that you can really figure out what needs to be done first, whether things can be done simulataneously, which tasks rely on others to be done first, etc. Then when you accomplish something, you can put it on a separate board to tout your achievements (which should motivate you). I also learned about prioritizing goals ("A" being must be done, "B" should be done, "C" nice to be done). So, I used up a whole pad of Post-Its to put down all the stuff that needs to be done, highlighting them according to priority, and stuck them in some semblance of organization on my wall. Of course, after I snapped the picture, more tasks popped into my head so the wall is even more crowded now. (And this picture doesn't include the bottom part of the list, which was cut off b/c it just didn't fit.)

Another important point I learned is that perfection can actually be detrimental -- it causes you to hold up processes trying to fix minutiae or fear starting things b/c it's so daunting. The huge point that hit me was "It's better done than perfect" b/c perfection is impossible. It was discussed how you can achieve excellence but not perfection but it's a difficult thing to digest b/c we're brought up to try to be perfect (especially Asian children). So, in regards to wedding planning -- don't try to be perfect, especially with all those details, it's just gotta get done!

Unfortunately, I think one of the ways I waste time from the project at hand is blogging... but perhaps I will use it as a reward for when I accomplish tasks?

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