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How to design and organize a project?

How does one organize a handful of projects, some being long-term?

  • Just a introduction, I made a reset in my life and I choose to do web development, but I need income and this comes from making websites for small companies. I never design no website just made some little hacks with Css, so I have to do a project at least to learn how to do it. In the same time I'm very focused and interested in learning Rails and Ruby, but I'm trying to create a routine, nevertheless I spent a good chunk of my time to it so it would be a loss of time and effort cutting rails out of the equation. I have ideas for my own projects and a need to acquire skills that allow me freelance and set my own web-design shop (front and back-end). For this I need projects, and to do them I need to organize what I do and what I learn, but I never ever was organized. Not in school not in life matters, a little bit in the house. I really don't like organization schemes (hard-core) but I found the need to organize, manage my works, projects, what I learn[ and find a process to choose what should I do first ]. I would like to ask you how do you do it and how you think I should do? Can you please give a practical example of yours? [Space for Updates/clarification]

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    Thanks for the ask - great question. And congratulations on taking a big step in changing your life. I wish I could give you an answer that would cover everything and solve the problem of time management and being organized - I might get myself organized, too, then. I think this will be a long answer, with at least three points to make... :) It's great that you've noticed you need to be organized somehow, so that you manage to balance your time correctly. When running a business for yourself, you are the one who suffers most when you do the wrong thing at the wrong time. In my case, my salary keeps running even if I do get muddled and waste time. First point: It's normal to get disorganized. You will be able to get reorganized. Even organized people need to battle with the pull of inertia and the feeling of it being too much of a bother to get organized. It's why we have a lot of proverbs in many languages and cultures about the need to plan before you act. It's so much easier to just do something, anything. Or then to get stuck in planning mode, without actually being able to move into executing the plan. Being organised is about doing what you need to be doing when you need to being it, regardless of whether that's planning, studying, relaxing, or profitable work. But people still tend to prefer just winging it, because all the decisions involved in being organized just seem like too much work. So you will need to fight with yourself on this one. But to be really successful, you do need to be organized in a way that works for you. Don't think that you are only one who finds it difficult, it really just is difficult, until it becomes a habit (might take years). The thing is that is difficult usually only because your lizard brain is telling you to go for immediate results and not bore yourself with tedious playing around with note books. You just need to rein in that part of yourself and do the work. Second point: You need to track what you do actually do, in addition to planning what you should do. When you create your plan on how you will organize your time, you need to track whether you are following the plan and also whether it is working like you expected. This way you will be able to fix any problems with your priorities before they cause bigger problems. Here is a detailed example of how to be more organized in life by tracking both: Third point: Everybody needs to figure out the best way for them to keep organized. You need to look at how you like to take notes, whether you are a pen and pencil type of person, whether you need to have your notes always with you (notebook / synced to mobile and tablet) or whether you want to segregate notes into the appropriate time and place, like suggests. Do you want a lightweight app that just gives you a blank space or do you want more structure? There are apps and websites there to help you get organized into projects, if that is what you are looking for. OneNote also works pretty well, if you are on a Microsoft environment, as it has full cloud and mobile integration. The big thing is, that you need to figure out what is the best way you keep notes as you go along, and then that you need to force yourself to read and review those notes, too. You could also try out some of the "gamify your life" type of apps to get you started. Some people need more detailed notes, others will manage with just a few words. You don't need an elaborate plan to get started, just think about what would feel most natural as a way of tracking what you do and what should be doing. You should also probably somehow divide your notes according to the projects, set some first goals and targets and figure it out from there. Think about the level of control you need, whether you need hourly, daily, weekly, or even monthly goals, or a mix of them all. I would probably try creating a OneNote (my workplace only supports Windows...) structure with paying projects separated from supporting projects and then private projects. I'd map out a high level plan for what I want to achieve in a long time period, and start breaking that down into concrete actions and goals. For me, the challenge would be to stick to those, and track what I am doing when I'm doing it. I might have to force myself into time slotting daily end-of-day meetings with myself for going over what I actually did and mapping that against my plans. I would then also write down what I need to do the next day to keep on track.

Emma Oivio at Quora Visit the source

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First, a disclaimer: I don't consider this a solved problem. Quite the opposite. For years I have just used a simple text file, called "notes.txt" on the desktop of my computer. Actually there's one on each of my computers, containing notes about the stuff I'm working on in each place - in my office at work, my home office, and my home laptop. The one at work just has a section for each of the development environments I have on that machine, and under each one I have the version of the product that the environment is sync'd to, the things I'm working on (usually just one line per work item), and the names of servers that I am using (or will be using) for testing of the changes in each dev environment. Plus a section at the top with short notes about other things I need to take care of - things to investigate, people to follow up with, changes too small to track in the bug database, etc. One line of text per 'thing' and usually just a few words. If things get stressful at work, I'll use a post-it note to list the top 2 or 3 priorities, and stick it to the side of a monitor so that with a quick glance I can remind myself of what my priorities are. The notes.txt on my desktop PC at home has short sections for each of the projects that I'm working on up there. Usually just a name for the project and a couple of bullet-points about things to do for that project. The one on my laptop at home is a mess... It starts with a list of home-improvement projects, then for every sort of thing I'm thinking of buying there's a list of manufacture/model/price/features. For me, buying something often turns into a project. Of course these files aren't synced and aren't backed up... Better than paper-and-pen but not dramatically so. I've experimented with Microsoft OneNote instead, and I use it from time to time... but you just can't beat the immediacy of "notes.txt" and a simple fast text editor. These files aren't used to record or develop complicated ideas, they're just used as reminders.  Most lines of text are just 3-10 words. Where I need to separate different projects in the same text file, I make a "heading" just by indenting a line with one tab, to make it stand out a bit. For complex things, I'll use something else to track what that needs to be done for a specific project. At home, for a nontrivial project I use another text file (checked into a source control system) with a to-do list and maybe a paragraph or three to record some ideas that haven't been distilled to a to-do list. At work there's the issue tracking database (too cumbersome for solo projects, but indispensable for large teams).

Nate Waddoups

I've used online tools like Nozbe (http://www.nozbe.com/) before, and know others who have also had success with it. It is useful for managing multiple projects, which include not only actual development projects, but also projects to improve yourself and projects to build your business and get more customers. I don't use it currently, but may subscribe again soon, as I start to work on multiple research projects with a range of short-term and long-term goals. If organization is your problem, this may be a reasonable solution for you, even though I don't think it's designed for managing IT projects.

Andrew Boysen

Thanks for the A2A , So here's the problem statement as I see it - ' You are starting with a small subset of skills that you want to expand into a large set of capabilities. You want to expand and work on a broad range of projects as you incrementally add these capabilities onto your resume, sometimes learning directly from those projects'. Here's what I'd do first Make a list of all the skills that I need and draw a map of how they connect to each other including dependencies like ' I need to know basic algorithms and architecture before i design a system X'. This is the most important step because it will help you prioritize your time and effort as well as remain motivated through the time it takes for you to make measurable progress. This is also the step that requires you to reach out and network with those who know what it takes to be good at the work that you aspire to do. Using the output from step 1 above, Estimate the time you need to build those skills and make a basic time sequence of the training/learning you need for those skills. Make a list of your pet projects/prototype projects and prioritize when you can do them based on the output of step 1 & 2 above. Since you want to build both front-end and backend skills, try and stitch a sequence that alternates between projects of both type. Fit the output from step 3 into a plan that uses at least 12 hours of work per week ( could be a Friday or a weekend day) - I am assuming that you'll be working on the income projects at least 4 days a week. Set aside a 'Clean Slate' day - On that day, review all current and pending activities and make three lists - ' Things to complete in the next week', ' Things to review after the next week' and ' Things to do in the Free Float Time' .  In each of these lists, separate tasks into groups for ' Work' , ' Relationships', ' Home' and 'Learning'. Then prioritize tasks within each group followed by tasks within each list. Revisit Steps 1-5 once every 3-4 weeks, except the updating of lists - Those lists need to be reviewed and updated at least once a week. Basic Rules for organizing Follow a 80-20 rule - 80% of your calendar organized into blocks, 20% of time let free floating. You can modify the ratio depending on the day of the week as well as other factors like volume of deadline driven work etc. Use 45-90 minute blocks on your calendar - Anything higher/lower and you'll not be productive/effective. Block off non-negotiable timeslots for exercise, relaxation, family/relationship time and education/learning each day Tool recommendation - Start with word/notepad/excel and build a system that works for you, then try to find a tool that matches your system. At an individual level, you really don't need much more than a text file to track your to do and an app that helps you organize your calendar and reminders. Book and organizing system recommendation - ' Getting things done' by David Allen Hope this helps!

Deepak Alse

You've already got a ton of great advice from other posters here, so I can only agree. In essence, work/life/everything is about organisation. The sooner you find a method that works *for you* the happier you will be with everything. Use this change of career as a catalyst to change your approach across all aspects of your life. There is no one methodology that is better than any other - every one of them (from .txt files to GTD to Workflowy) requires discipline from yourself, and this is a personal trait more than anything else. I would recommend reading The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey if you haven't already, it's a great start on getting the basics right. As far as your business is concerned, remember to measure everything from time spent to productivity (lines of code written, client satisfaction/feedback) so you can quantify your progress, this is important. And remember - as Aristotle said, "We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit." Change your habits, change your life. Good luck!

Alexander King

As I have been where you are at some point in the past (having a business of making web sites for small companies), I can only advice you never to forget: organization and planning is (almost) everything in software development. not only inside documentation, also inside the code you write. Don't take this the wrong way, you don't have to be necessary organized type of person, you can use a tool that will help you to work organized. A tool like https://jira.atlassian.com for example (http://floodyberry.com/carmack/plan.html). I'm sorry if this is a bit disappointing to you, but it's true. It's my conclusion of working with software projects and software code for 16 years.

Igal Alkon

I am some what like you, rather I was an unorganized ship wreck. So when I had important things to manage and when I moved out of my parents house, I had no option but to organize myself. Start slow, I use a big, massive poster calendars for bigger things and use a notepad for daily projects. Write down the stuff and let it be there as a visual reminder. Allocate a time period for everything big or small. Let say Ruby, ear mark three months on the big as calendar and write it up as top priority on daily tasks. Every morning 1 hour to study Ruby. Every time you complete something cancel it off with a pencil. It is pretty satisfying.  Once you start this you will get into a habit of doing things on time. Reward yourself for following schedules and punish yourself when you don't. The subconscious will pick it up soon as a rewarding behaviour and alter you. You will be a an organized man! Trust me I am much better than what I was.

Mayur Makheri

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