Yeah, another manifesto (a tiny one about tasks, projects, and householding).

Four-year old making music on keyboard and GarageBand.

I got irritated and impatient, and for better or for worse, below is the baby missive I banged out on our giant whiteboard. We go hard, we make a mess, and we generally have fun together, but at a certain point you have to evaluate what processes are working and which ones need some tweaking to get back on the right rails. So this is the reminder I greeted our family with as a reminder blast.

Find meaning in the work you do.

If it’s not meaningful, and you can’t explain or understand why it’s necessary or important, then you may as well use your time for something that is meaningful or necessary.

It can be fun.

Ninety-nine percent of the time, there is a way to make the work you’re doing more enjoyable.

Understand the difference between an ongoing task and a project.

Tasks are recurring things that need to be done repetitively. Projects are singular and have an end point.

Put things away where they go.

This is huge. If there’s not place for something to go…well, that’s a project. To be done once. Or once in a while.

Break it down and make it doable.

Almost anything is doable when you break it down into manageable portions. But: you have to keep your eyes on the end point, or on the overall vision, on the big picture, so do not make your life harder by sprawling and creating a dozen new mini-projects that can’t be completed within a specified time frame.