Progress

My personal way to keep track on multiple projects is by setting up a central record.

In short, it is a Microsoft Words document with nothing but a simple four-column table. Each project appears as a row, and I put down the name of the project, major collaborator, what next I have to do about it (or what I am waiting for), and the priority of the task. For the last item, I give a score from one (urgent and important) to four (neither) following the system outlined by Stephen Covey in The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.

Next, I fix up a time every week to go through each row of the table and make necessary updates. (It’s generally Monday morning, after my regular morning study but before everything else.) The revised table is then printed out and pinned next to my desktop computer – it becomes the to-do list for me that week.

And, a row is deleted only if the project has come to an end – say, for a research project, after the paper is published.

You find my method familiar? It’s not my invention. For example, Rudy Giuliani used a similar system to manage the whole New York City when he was the Mayor.

Go read his Leadership.