How To Juggle Multiple Projects
and do it without burning out
Today I’m answering a question submitted to my Q&A: “How do I juggle multiple projects throughout a year and not burn out?”
This is a question that I bet a lot of folks can relate to! I know I can. Before we dive into managing multiple projects at once, let’s start by thinking about working on one project.
Make It Actionable and Achievable
Even if you had only one project on your docket, I would encourage you to set some actionable and achievable approaches. As a reminder, a goal becomes actionable when you can take action on it, meaning you know the steps you have to complete and the order in which you need to work on them. A goal becomes achievable when you develop an approach based on the actual personal resources (time, energy, focus, etc.) available to you. If you can split your project up into smaller bites, you can make meaningful progress in productivity sessions.
Reverse Engineer with Milestones
I encourage folks to reverse engineer their approach by identifying the final outcome they hope to achieve and then creating benchmarks to work towards completing it. For example, if you’re writing a dissertation, you might sketch out your plan for working on your chapters in a particular order. Once you have an idea of the different steps for your project, try reframing each one as its own milestone and scoping out when you’d like to complete them.
Now that I’ve talked a bit about making progress on a single goal or project, let’s shift to working on multiple ones at once.
Forecast Busy Seasons and Plan Accordingly
If you’re working on overlapping projects, you’ll have to do a little extra strategizing to make sure you keep up with your milestones and deadlines. You might be able to forecast times of the year when you know you’ll be busy (like the end of the semester, preparing for a trip, tax season, etc.) or when you know your personal resources may dip (like when you’re on your period, the anniversary of losing someone you loved, a period of fasting, etc.). While we can’t always predict when we might undergo a stressful time in our year, it can help to identify times when we’ll need to conserve our personal resources or build in more recovery time. If you can tell now that you’ll have overlapping deadlines for milestones in your project, that itself can cause stress or burnout! You’ll need to protect your time and energy even more carefully so you’re not overwhelmed as you get closer to your deadlines.
Don’t Forget Behind the Scenes and Invisible Labors
I imagine the questioner was thinking about different scholarly or work projects when they asked this question, but our job and our education aren’t the only things using up our precious personal resources! When you’re planning out your monthly or weekly schedule or drafting up your to-do list, pause to make sure you’re not forgetting tasks that take up your time, energy, and focus—even if they might not “count” as work to others. If you’re a parent or a caregiver, you’re going to have to plan around other people’s timelines, too.
Batchotask Your Priorities
Batchotasking is the combination of a time management and focus tool, batching + monotasking. If you’re working on multiple projects, it might help to identify specific blocks of time when you will focus on Project A or Project B. There’s a dual benefit here: if you can identify a specific time of the week when you can monotask on a specific project, you’re giving yourself permission to focus ONLY on that task during that time block and you’re also giving yourself permission NOT to work on it during other times. After your focused productivity session, you can put the project back on the shelf and return to it during your next intentional productivity session.
Schedule In Breaks and Self-Care
When you’re managing multiple projects, taking time for yourself might not feel like a privilege you have access to. I get it, and I do sympathize! The questioner asked how to avoid burnout throughout the year, and I’ll remind us all here that burnout is the result of ongoing stress, with physical, mental, and emotional symptoms. As you brainstorm your short-term and long-term schedule for working on your projects, think about what types of rest and self-care will be most helpful for you—not to make you more productive, but to help you have a better quality of life, even when you’re up against multiple deadlines. I recommend Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith’s 7 Types of Rest framework as a good starting place if you’re stumped on what types of rest might benefit you the most.
Suggested resources for diving deeper:
Is there a burning question you have about productivity, slow living, or my work? Submit it for an upcoming Q&A post below.
Take care and talk soon,
Dr. Kate