This piece is meant to be a synthesization of many other complex topics and written frameworks. The following visual displays the primary cross pollinations between ideas, or knowledge areas (KA’s).
It is also important to note; this is written primarily for the individual with a high-drive nature. Still the project management skill is essential regardless of if someone is managing one workstream or fifty different workstreams or “areas requiring attention” simultaneously, because project management is central to execution…. or productivity.
Nineteen knowledge areas drawn as the source draws them: two columns of areas, with Encoding, Speed Through Tech and Japanese Business running as hubs through the middle, and roughly ninety connector lines crossing between them.
The density is the point — it is what shows how heavily these areas cross-pollinate. The areas are linked rather than ranked; there is no hierarchy and no reading order.
The diagram shows the primary cross-pollinations between knowledge areas.
Starting with a definition, what can be considered a project?
- Initiative within an entity
- Health, fitness and nutrition
- Education, learning a subject
- Travel, planning an adventure
- Relationships, especially the core intimate relationship
- Many more
Wait, could an intimate relationship be a project? For those that might get stuck here, this can fracture into an entire other topic of conversation. To clarify, relationships aren’t “managed” like projects.
When any type of relationship is nurtured, but especially a core intimate relationship, it requires very focused time and attention. Just like managing a workstream within a business initiative. Just like properly managing a fitness and nutrition routine. Or just like managing the deconstruction of an area of knowledge that needs to be learned.
To contain things in this compressed writing format, and to tie back to the idea of a project, it’s only meant to demonstrate that there are many different areas of life all requiring significant time and attention…or “management”.
And to further tie back into the high-drive nature as an obsessive builder of things, mastering project management is a foundational skill.
A Few Fundamentals of Skill
- Focus
- Clear strategy built around purpose
- Being rigorous with time management
- Clearing the noise, bullshit can quickly become a part-time job
- Starts with understanding which projects don’t serve purpose
- Sequencing
- Proper planning, but ability to be agile and adaptive
- Aim small, miss small
- Team Building
- Becoming very skilled at choosing the right people and properly delegating
- Partnership/ownership model
- Less of each pie, so a pie manufacturing facility can be constructed
Technological Advantage
Firstly, the addition of technology does not replace the process. The process of diving into knowledge and understanding the mechanics must be loved. But it’s unquestionably true that the advantage technology has provided to quickly understand things and then build systems of speed is a productivity multiplier if harnessed correctly.
The Individual
How does each person define success, happiness, and impact? This goes back to each person understanding themselves and being clear on how they want to interact with the world. Once these are clarified, everything else is much more intentional.
Aligning with a purpose will inevitably keep priorities and therefore productivity as a project manager channeled in the right direction.
Conclusion
Humans aren’t meant to have all these “projects”. Our brains naturally are designed for a small tribe and a simple world. For most, this is no longer the reality. Juggling personal and professional, with complex areas of each, has become the new normal.
The running conversation around “single track” or “parallel” entrepreneur or operator is alive and well. But once looked at through the lens of project management, and the definition provided above, it seems like most high-drive individuals…and actually just about everyone…are managing numerous different projects at once. This means in some way, everyone is playing in the realm of parallel and the only way to keep it all moving effectively, and pushing the bounds of productivity, is mastering the skill (or maybe art) of purposeful project management.