Perspective: The Last 20% Which Is 50% of the Entire Project, Part II — Ongoing Projects

Last week I wrote about the last 20% of a project which usually takes 50% or more of a project.

What if it’s a situation like this blog? This blog doesn’t have a set end date or a defined end goal. What then?

My experience is it will be entirely too easy to get caught up in details. I’ve thought about it, read about it, listened to podcasts about it. After all that, I’ve come to the conclusion an ongoing project can’t be treated as an ongoing project. It has to be treated as a succession of a number of set goals with set timelines.

The purpose of the goals and timelines isn’t to create an impossible amount of work, and to then beat myself or someone else over the head with failure to meet that impossible standard. Rather, the purpose of the goals and timelines is to have a strategic plan. This is the only way I can see to avoid being caught in endless rounds of minutiae that is the end details of any project.