Weekly Journal 62 - Project Planning, Social Media

Scott Banwart

2022-03-11

Weekly Journal

fediverse, mastodon, project-planning, social-media

Project Planning

One of the things I have really been struggling with is project planning. This is something that has been an issue for both work and personal projects. This week I think I had a couple of breakthroughs in understanding more about project planning and I think this is going to help me get better at starting and managing my projects.

The first breakthrough was a better understanding about defining project goals and outcomes. Many times I have an idea for a project, but I can’t always articulate why I want to do it. After rereading the chapters on setting up project goals and outcomes in the Getting Things Done and Bullet Journal Method books, I think something finally clicked into place. This week I went back through my project list and documented the goals and outcomes for each and I now have clearer picture of why I want to do these projects, and what the benefits will be when they are complete. Having this written down is going to help me focus better on the big picture and hopefully help me from getting lost in the details.

This week I am questioning my use of social media again. I had some hope for the Fediverse since it is a federated network of independent sites vs. a centralized platform like Twitter, but as time goes on and the Fediverse grows it continues to devolve into a cesspool of crypto grifters pushing their Ponzi schemes, bots and shills for various political views, and adult material. I see the occasional link or story in my feed that I probably wouldn’t have found otherwise, but I feel I’m wading through a swamp to get that one tiny bit of useful information. I’m just not sure it’s worth it any more.

As an alternative, I am toying with the idea of linking to more things that I think are cool on this blog. Basically I would take the kinds of things I would post to social media, and turn them into short blog posts instead. If nothing else I think it would be a better use of my time than scrolling through the garbage on the public timelines.