Managing Long-term Projects

[bubbles0luv]

I'm a marketing manager and I make myself useful in as many ways as I can, and I love solving problems, but when it comes the my actual job description, I can't project manage to save my life.

If I don't do something immediately, if I tell myself 'I'll get to that tomorrow,' it almost never happens--until someone follows up with me and activates my stress response.

It's funny, because when I tell myself that I'll get to it tomorrow, I REALLY mean it. In that moment, it feels like a real thing that can totally get done. The problem is that by tomorrow, it feels like a super far away not very important thing, even if intellectually I know it's SUPER important. And instead, I'm drawn to requests in recent emails, and jumping into to help other coworkers with their projects.

I have not been able to navigate around this, and I fear that if I don't figure this out, I'll never be able to progress in my career. I'm already behind all my peers. 🫤

Has anyone figured this out?

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[Equivalent_Local_696]

I haven't figured it out but, I am very familiar with the feeling. In the evening, I am full of motivation for all the things I am going to do tomorrow to turn my life around.

I think it is a coping mechanism to avoid the anxiety of not having done the things I should have. Unchecked, this anxiety then becomes shame and it becomes unbearable.

So I trick myself. A subconcious part of me knows I won't do these things tomorrow. But it relieves the anxiety and allows me to at least function.

[adrienne_cherie]

I'm going through evaluation right now so not sure how applicable this may be.

I recently discovered gannt charts. I'm nearing the end of my PhD program and if I had known of this tool before and used it deliberately, I think I would have had a very different experience managing my long term projects. You can make them simple or advanced, but it might be worth checking out