Project Management

The most important metaskill

A thread I read recently that I will never stop thinking about, is that project management is life’s most important skill:

“Project management is the most powerful skill, because it is the skill by which you acquire all other skills. It’s how you journal for 10 years. It’s how you “learn how to learn”, & “learn how to live”. It’s ‘getting stuff done’, advanced edition.

I feel like the most important thing we need to learn as kids, after things like “language” and “people skills” – which we kinda pick up naturally anyway – is “project management”.

Project management is something that isn’t super intuitive, because it’s something that involves things that are bigger than what you might naturally do in a given day. The variance is massive. Some people dick around their whole lives, others build cathedrals and rocket ships.

You might say that “oh, the most important thing is learning how to learn”, and my response would be “yup, and that’s project management” – setting yourself a curriculum, figuring out what you’re going to do over a period of time, how you’re going to measure your progress… “no wait, actually, the most important thing is learning how to LIVE” and my response would be “yup, and that’s project management” – deciding what your priorities and values are, how you should spend your time, what you should do more of, what you should do less of, over decades.

Appreciating the differences between these methods is a significant part of being effective at achieving things –incremental is rarely a good idea unless you’re really, really certain of what you’re doing.

The hardest project to manage is “how to become a better project manager”. The ability to break down a complex project into manageable chunks is a hugely underrated professional skill. Strange that so few people hire & evaluate for it.” - @visakanv

I really don’t know what else to add. Everything in life is project management. Becoming a better project manager is what I should optimize for. Create systems that help you achieve this.

What are examples of explicit systems? Something that author also did was create a system for his marriage: Me, my wife and our matrimonial Slack. Something he wrote that struck me was: “your spouse is going to be the person that you fight with the most”. As a result, you need systems to both prevent and resolve fights. To prevent fights, the key seems to be addressing issues earlier on and potentially addressing them on specified dates on a shared calendar (which seems a bit insane if you think about it, but probably is a better option than choosing times randomly). For ongoing fights, it’s important to mentally note that the fight was started not because the other person is intrinsically bad, but rather a function of their current emotional state.

What about systems for maintaining relationships? According to Visakan, there needs to be explicit time scheduled for date nights and 1-on-1s. Being synchronous as a couple is important (not just always vaguely coexisting) and time set aside explicitly to understand where your partner is mentally, how they are feeling, how work is going for them, becomes really important. Again, I think this goes back to the subject of Life is a fight against entropy; entropy in the context of a relationship can slowly crawl its way into crevices that can ultimately erode things much bigger than you expect. It might seem tedious, but making sure you are asking and are explaining what exactly it is that bothers you (rather than bundling it all up because you are afraid the other person shouldn’t be bothered) is necessary. As someone who always loves to bottle things up because I fear that I’m a nuisance to the other person, this is a self-reminder. Try not to defer decisions and thoughts, because they can fester.

One foot in front of the other

While systems are important, they should never be a constraint between you and the action of actually doing something. Another beautiful Ava essay on not losing my nerve that I read recently is a reminder to not let “thinking about something” prevent me from doing the actual thing:

“I’ve been afraid of writing for a long time. I think we sometimes shy away from giving 100% to the things we care about most because we know failure there hurts more than anywhere else. For instance I’m generally good at making people feel at ease, but when I really like someone I tend to become noticeably awkward around them: because I care more, I perform worse. I’d always been afraid to try to write a book because I could instantly imagine a thousand disaster scenarios: what if I’m one of those people who just procrastinates for five years and produces nothing, or what if I write it and it’s really terrible? I was only able to embark on it as a project because I was at a relatively happy, stable point in my life. Otherwise I would’ve never had the confidence to even try. I always thought I wouldn’t be able to write something so long, and I’m happy that I’ve proven at least that particular fear wrong: I’ve written well over 100,000 words this year.

The problem, of course, is that other fears have popped up. I worry that the plot isn’t engrossing enough, or that the quality of the writing itself is subpar. I worry that the dialogue is contrived, that the characters feel flat and two-dimensional. When I send chapters to friends I worry that they secretly hate it but are afraid to tell me because they want to spare my feelings. I’ve also noticed that my level of output fluctuates a lot—some weeks I’m extremely productive, some days I can barely write a paragraph—and I feel guilt about that because I feel like I’d be able to steadily power through everything if I were only determined or disciplined enough. I don’t sit around all day leaning into paranoid (or possibly realistic) fears, but they often flit across my mind.

While talking to a friend the other day about creative work I realized that a constant resolution that helps me continue is the thought that I can’t lose my nerve. It’s like walking on a tightrope: there are infinite ways to fuck up and fall, but it’s important to not think about it too much, or else you’ll psych yourself out and actually fall when you otherwise might’ve been okay.”

Some projects/goals in life feel like you’re walking on a tightrope. In Ava’s case, she’s in the process of writing a book and going through the editing process, stressing about increasingly specific details. During moments when you feel frustrated about current progress, or paralyzed based on the number of future decisions, the best but hard thing to do is to not lose your nerve, and to grit your teeth and do it.

Haruki Murakami on how to complete marathons:

“One foot in front of the other. Repeat as often as necessary to finish”