Do You Have Trouble Moving Projects Forward? It Could Be That You’re Thinking In Feet, But Moving In Inches

Charlie Gilkey
2 min readNov 5, 2021

While it may seem like working on several projects in parallel is a good way to keep things going, we’re often better off to move fewer projects further than juggling more for longer.

My neighbor came to the above realization on his own as I was giving him a quick intro to the Momentum Planning system. Like I always do, I started with explaining the Five Projects Rule and I asked him what his five priority projects were for September.

When he mentioned the fourth project on his list, I instantly knew it was the one that didn’t have a strong anchor. It had the air of the “good to do” project, whereas the others had manifest reasons why they needed to be done for the month. It wasn’t just that it was an urgent but not important project, as a couple of others were, too.

After we explored some other potential projects and downgraded some others to week-sized projects, he still had six projects. Cagematch time!

When prompted about which one project he would drop for the month if he had to, surprise surprise, it was the fourth one.

“Why that one?”, I asked.

He went on to explain that the project itself didn’t have to get done for a few quarters, but he had a habit of having multiple creative projects going at any time, each at a snail’s pace. As he was explaining it to me, he realized that maybe that’s why it…

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Charlie Gilkey

Author of Team Habits - http://www.productiveflourishing.com/team-habits/ - and the best-selling Start Finishing. Executive coach, investor, and philospher.