Managing multiple projects at the same time

Hello. My name is Mike Clayton. I'm the founder of OnlinePMCourses, which is both a website offering paid courses and also a YouTube channel. In this talk, I'm going to discuss a challenge that a lot of project managers face: managing multiple projects at the same time.

How can I manage multiple projects at once, you might ask. Well, there is a simple answer. I'm afraid it's pretty obvious. But it is no less valuable for that. The way to manage multiple projects at once is one at a time because the human brain is very poorly suited for multitasking. The fact is that as soon as a second task becomes complex, we just can't do it. Trying to manage two, three, four, five things at once will not only cause you to slow down, it will mean you will make more errors than you would otherwise make. This gives us two approaches. The first is to find your top priority project and to focus on that and that alone. Get it done and then move on to the next project. But if you cannot realistically do that, you need to segment your week into big chunks. You need to have dedicated periods of time where you focus on one project at a time and then move on to the next one, what we might call serial monotasking. Some people use big chunks, whole half days. Approximately 10 per working week if that allow you to focus for a whole half day on one project. Others find they need to chunk their week up into smaller chunks, perhaps four chunks a day; two every morning and two every afternoon. Personally, I segment my day into three. I have a very early morning slot and then I have the morning up to lunch and then the afternoon. Within those time slots, stick to one main thing and then make sure you have breaks not only within that time slot, but also significant breaks where you get out of your chair, possibly even get out of the building, get fresh air, get daylight, have a glass of water, perhaps even a snack to properly recharge before moving on to the next project. This is important because it creates a mental separation. The way that I think about managing multiple projects is about wearing multiple hats. I think of the process of managing