Designing Your Personal Growth Plan: Applying Project Management Principles
One thing I’m often recognized for is my ability to create plans and execute them to completion. It’s something that comes so naturally to me that I used to struggle to recognize it as a strength. It wasn’t until I worked with people who didn’t have the ability to do this that I realized it’s not a skill that everyone possesses. It’s fitting that my full time job is in project management.
When I returned to school to study Human Experience Design and Interaction, I took several classes on Project Management, and led teams to completion of many group projects in my classes. I learned that there are some general principles of project management that are surprisingly applicable to so many areas of your own life.
It was at this point that I started to think - how can I apply project management to my life in a more personal way? How can I use these principles I’m learning outside of a professional role?
And I had the idea (though I’m sure others have had it before me and I just haven’t really seen it done before) to create a personal development project for myself and run it using the general principles of project management that I had learned.
I started with outlining the general principles of project management:
Define the Goal
Create a Timeline
Track Progress
Celebrate Milestones
Reflect and Adjust
Then I took a deeper look at each of the principles and determined how I would logistically apply those to personal development as a whole.
Define the Goal
Goals aren’t goals unless they have specificity and are measurable. If you aren’t able to definitively say yes you completed it, then it’s not a goal.
So I had to get specific. But since I wasn’t applying this to one specific course or book, but to a more broad personal development plan, I had to figure out how I could set a specific goal that wasn’t tied to just one thing.
I settled on an idea I got from the 75 Hard program from Andy Frisella. One of the daily rules from 75 Hard is to read 10 pages a day from a non-fiction book. This sparked the idea that I could define a yes or no as simply as that, and then I could create a curriculum of material to work through - similar to what happens in a college course.
For example, if I wanted to focus my personal development plan on improving my habits with money and getting more on top of my finances, I would seek out a few books or course resources that would educate me on the topic. I could also add in some podcast episodes or articles. And then I would create a list of the content I wanted to consume on the topic. I’ll get more into this in a minute, but it’s also not just about consuming it, you need to do something more with what you consume or it isn’t effective to learn.
So my goal was this: Read 10 pages or consume 20 minutes of listening to curriculum content surrounding the topic of money each day.
Create a Timeline
There are a couple timelines involved when it relates to bigger projects. You have a larger project timeline and you also have timelines for each of the milestones or tasks within your project. It seemed more important for me to focus on consistency, than an end date for my project, but it all depends on the project, some projects will have a firm end deadline, but typically personal development is more of an ongoing, timeline.
Track Your Progress
My tool of choice for tracking everything in my life is Notion. So, naturally, this made the most sense to track my progress. The way I opt to track it is by simply checking a box that I’ve done my learning. As for tracking the entire curriculum plan, I already was using Notion to track my goals and my content consumption. So I simply created a new goal, then linked it up to each of the books, podcasts, or other material that I wanted to include in the curriculum plan.
Each of those pieces of material lives on it’s own page in Notion, so that I can take notes, include thoughts, and further dive into what I learn. It also has a property where I can put the date I start, the status of the material, and the date I complete it. This helps me see the progression of the goal overall.
Pro tip: Use the Notion AI to get even more mileage out of your learning by asking questions and having the AI help you deep dive into those answers.
Celebrate Milestones
Some goals are much easier to determine what the milestones should be, and others are a bit more difficult. But I’ve learned from experience, as someone who does not easily celebrate her achievements, that you have to create milestones and actively choose to celebrate your progress. It’s so easy for me to skip this part and just move on to what’s next, that I don’t even realize how far I’ve come.
So this one actually is a difficult step for me, even though it seems like it should be the easiest.
This is one of those goals that has pretty easy milestones. I kept it that way and used each piece of curriculum material as a milestone. The little 10 pages/20 minutes each day adds up to completing one piece of material at a time, and then I celebrate.
Reflect and Adjust
I once had a friend tell me in passing, “Don’t ever adjust your goal, but don’t be afraid to adjust your end date.” And I don’t know where she heard it, but it’s something that stuck with me. Your only two choices are to keep the goal, or ditch the goal. If it’s not relevant to you anymore, or something you no longer care to achieve once you’re on the road to it, that’s okay. Ditch the goal. But if it’s just something you’re having a hard time achieving by a certain date - change the date, so you still achieve the original goal.
There are studies that show that being flexible with your goal timelines, lead to higher levels of goal attainment and subjective well-being. It also leads to greater motivation and success.
But on the flip side, decreasing the goal to be something easier to attain because you didn’t reach the original date you had intended has an opposite effect on your brain. So, you’re better off, mentally, by giving yourself more time, than reducing your original target.
Of course, the only way to know if you’re on track is to set aside time to be reflective.
In conclusion, designing a personal growth plan using project management principles can help you achieve your goals and reach your full potential. By defining specific, measurable goals, creating a timeline, tracking progress, celebrating milestones, and reflecting and adjusting as needed, you can develop a structured and effective plan for personal development. Remember to stay flexible and adjust your goals as needed, and don't forget to celebrate your accomplishments along the way. Applying these principles to your personal life can help you achieve success and lead to greater satisfaction and well-being.
