Do you need to work on multiple projects at the same time?

Are you wondering what you need to do to keep everything organized and on track?

Multiple projects can complicate any work day.

Sometimes, it feels as if you are literally trying to juggle many balls and keep them in the air.

How do you keep things moving along at an even pace and get things done?

In this post, you’ll find several tips to help you effectively manage multiple projects at the same time.

LIST OUT projects.

You know you have multiple projects on which to work.

But how many projects do you actually have? Is it four projects or fourteen?

Take a minute to jot down all your projects. The key here is to take a bird’s eye view of your work as opposed to focusing on all the tiny details.

In some cases, what might seem like a separate project could actually be part of a larger project. In such cases, you’ll have less projects to physically manage.

List out your projects one by one: doing so will help you make your day-to-day tasks that much clearer.

Identify project milestones.

Now that you’ve identified your projects, it’s time to mark out all the major milestones for each.

You’re going to break out your project into more detail.

For example, what are the final due dates for items? What project components must get completed this week, month or quarter?

If you need some help with this, you may want to imagine projects as different building blocks, each with a beginning, middle, and end.

For example, are you in the beginning block of your project, such as conducting research, interviews or basic planning?

Are you in the middle block of your project, such as actively developing, writing or producing items?

Perhaps you’re at the end block, such as completing a report or putting the final touches on arrangements for an event or meeting.

Line up your different projects and their individual milestones side-by-side in a physical list or chart.

This will help you visualize how far along you are with your work, as well as the major milestones you’ll need to reach over the next couple of days and weeks.

Block out time to work on each project.

The only way to get work done is to actually sit down and do it!

Try blocking out specific periods of time to ensure you accomplish work for different projects.

For example, you might decide to work for one hour on Project A, switch gears and work for one hour on Project B.

You might then take a break and start work on Project C.

You could also apply this time blocking to particular days of the week.

For instance, you might say, “I’ll work on Project A on Monday, Project B on Tuesday, and Project C on Wednesday. I’ll review my work on Thursday to see where I need to focus my efforts for the remainder of the week.”

Keep your head out of the sand.

One surefire way to mismanage many concurrent projects is to simply ignore them.

Don’t take a backseat approach to your projects. Face your projects head-on and you’ll know exactly where things stand.

Which projects are on-schedule, ahead of schedule or lagging up the rear?

Where might you need to inject a bit more effort or energy to bring the project where it needs to be at this point in time?

Where might you need to pull back or leave some items alone as you attend to more important issues?

Schedule regular periods of time in your calendar to review the status of your projects.

Depending on your project load, these check-ins could be as infrequent as weekly, daily, to multiple times a day if things are really down to the wire.

Remember to view each check-in as a unique moment in time.

Make your project management decisions based on the information right in front of you.

How about you? Which of the above tips are you going to use when it comes to managing your projects? Join the conversation and leave a comment below!