When I was in college, I learned a planning style that occasionally I re-remember.

This was during my Technical Writing class, and it was designed for planning a writing/publishing project, such as an advertisement brochure.

Turns out, it works pretty well for actually plotting out things like… renovations, too.

And spring is sort of coming now.  So I’m starting to figure out the planning for some of our extant projects.

They’re big ones.  I mean, it’s a house and I want to redo everything in it eventually.

(probably even the bedroom that we did first, because the walls still need redoing and we still don’t really have a closet.)

But the plan goes sort of like.

Break your project down into tasks.

(for Attic, I can look at: ceiling, walls, floor)

Break those up into sub-tasks.

(Finish the sistering of the rafters (sigh), clean up all of the weird bits of boards, have the whole thing insulated, etc.)

If those need to be broken up more for milestones, do that. (2-3 rafters before Saturday).

Repeat.

So, the problem I have is twofold: One is the sort of project creep that comes with an old house: You take off the floor and realize you need to replace the joists, for example.

The other is the sort that comes when you just THINK UP more projects to do.

When I was coming up with a plan for Christmas cards (technically the envelopes and mail art (It’s LetterMo’s fault, okay? 🙂 ), Cal (@InspectorCaracal) offered some advice:

If it’s part of the project, you’ll go “I need to X first”

If you’re going “I *should* X first” then it means it is not necessary and you’re adding extra steps which is how you wind up with multiple projects instead of just one

https://tootplanet.space/@InspectorCaracal/101665498877902404

I’ve been trying to hold on to that (I do not need to buy a basket for slippers and make three pairs of slippers for guests to have the foyer finished, for example).

… But I could really use some flat storage for paper goods up in the attic….

How do you tackle big projects?