Smaller plans make for greater flexibility

Last week and into the weekend I've been planning out my 4th quarter.

I had a solid set of app improvements planned out but I wanted to take a look at the rest of my business projects and see where to invest my attention and focus.

Since most of my projects are DIYish, my constraint is time and energy. Sure I could build up an awesome, all-encompassing SEO strategy for the next 12 months. But then nothing else would get done.

Instead I use a more incremental approach.

Start with one small project that takes a couple of weeks to finish. Move on to the next one and finish it. Just repeat this cycle.

I might have multiple SEO mini-projects or features for Repeat Customer Insights in a series but they aren't planned that way. If something else becomes more important, that'll cycle in naturally.

The downside is that larger projects might progress slower than I'd want. Like how the customer acquisition source in Repeat Customer Insights ended up taking all summer to build (more details soon).

But the flexibility and option to switch more than makes up for that.

Going into the next few months where interruptions are the norm, that flexibility will come in handy.

If you've never planned that way, I'd recommend looking at how David Allen's Getting Things Done framework works with projects. You don't need to adopt the whole system, just knowing how to size projects can be a major productivity step up.

Eric Davis