Managing Projects – Breaking Them Down

You have something that you have or want to do. Maybe it overwhelms you. I have a project like that. I’m revising several novels simultaneously. Your project is too large to do at once. It might be easier than you think. What you need to do is look at the project carefully. Find a way to see if the project has smaller portions that you can do.

In my case, I am just taking each novel on its own. A project to revise five novels is easy to break down into doable chunks — one novel. But is that all I can do? No. I can break it down further into chapters. I can revise each novel, one after the other, chapter by chapter. I can break it down even further by breaking each chapter into the component scenes. I did the first novel in its entirety. The second, I’m running through scene by scene. It makes the work easier to do and that is what is important. What makes it easier to do what you are doing and bring it to completion.

I used a website Autocrit(Autocrit.com). It’s a paid site that checks text for certain things in the revision process. The site is broken down into several areas: pacing and momentum, dialog, strong writing, word choice, repetition and compare to fiction. These areas are further broken down to individual tests. For example, the pacing and momentum section is broken down into sentence variation, pacing, paragraph variation, and chapter variation. This is a good example of breaking a project down into component features.

The site is the perfect example of breaking a project into smaller pieces. This is the key. Make it smaller and then it isn’t as overwhelming. That’s what you want. That’s what helps get the job done. You can even delegate certain pieces to different people, if you have people to help you with your project. You just break the project down and do it in pieces, whether alone or with others. No one does a full blown project in its entirety. Breaking projects down just makes sense.

Breaking a project down into the smallest pieces possible make it easier to do the project. You just take each piece in turn and as you complete the piece, so you begin to complete the overall project. It might be slow work, but it is something easier to work with. If you do this, you can do the larger project. You just do it in chunks. This is nothing new. People have been doing it for decades, if not centuries. Project management is more the art of breaking projects up than actually doing the project. Completing the parts completes the whole. It’s as simple as that. Break the project down into pieces. Complete the pieces and you complete the project. That’s project management.

About pebblepup

I am not one who is comfortable talking about myself but here goes. I enjoy writing, family history, and reading. I decided to do this blog because I wanted to try something new. I decided to make it a weekly blog because I wasn't sure that I could keep up with a daily one, and monthly seemed like I was writing a magazine. I think I did ok with my choices. You'll notice that there are not a lot of graphics on my site. That's because there are graphics plastered everywhere on the Internet and those sites sometimes take forever to load. This blog is a place where you can kick back, relax and be ready to be amused. At least I hope I willbamuse you. This blog is on a variety of subjects from my ficitional cat agency, the FFL, which is monthly, to instructional blogs to editorials, which are my opinions only. I admit that I don't know everything and could be wrong -- I frequently am. Now, stop reading about me and read what I have to say!