How I Developed an Alumni Association in One Month: Week 1 Update
I decided to take on a project to challenge and push myself, develop my professional skills, and create value for an organization I care deeply about: the Alumni Association of the Epsilon-Nu Chapter of Lambda Chi Alpha. You can read an overview of what I did here.
If you’re reading this, it’s probably because you know a little bit about this project I’m working on: I’m developing my fraternity’s alumni association in one month by creating a landing page for individuals to learn more about the association, creating a plan to recruit new members to volunteer with the association, and creating a plan to raise funds for the association. The purpose of this post and my other weekly update posts is to tell you a bit about what I did each week to complete my project.
Week 1 was all about mapping out the month, doing all the necessary pre-planning for my project, setting goals for myself, and coming up with an effective time and task management system to hold myself accountable and keep me on top of my work. So I did just that!
My Task Management System: Trello
For my task management system, I chose Trello. I chose Trello because I find Trello’s use of boards, lists, and cards to be incredibly user-friendly, efficient, and flexible for any kind of task management system that works best in any given situation (you can check out a previous post I’ve written on how awesome Trello is here).
For this project, I decided to take a week-by-week approach. This approach allowed me to set weekly goals, know exactly what I want to have done each week, and view everything from a bird’s eye view. Here’s what this looked like from the start:
As you can see, I have a series of tasks and goals with clear due dates and weekly assignments to keep me on track to completing a kick-ass project. You can learn more about how I did my task management process by clicking here.
Another cool trick I used to help me time manage was to utilize the Cronofy Power-Up. The Cronofy Power-Up allowed me to sync my Trello tasks to my Google Calendar so that I had yet another way of viewing my weekly assignments day by day and aid me in my work sessions. I also wrote a brief how-to on using the Cronofy Power-Up.
Goal Setting and Knowing the End Result
The most important component of this stage of my project was about making my goals and outcomes clear. If I hadn’t started with these, I would have had no idea where to start! I learned that the hard way.
With the anticipation of just getting my project started, I started doing work without any clear goals or desired outcomes in mind. I felt scattered, disorganized, and like I wasn’t making the best use of my time. Why? Because I had no clear path.
I learned quickly that I needed to reel it in and start with the end in mind. What did I want to accomplish? What tangible products did I want to see by the end of my project? How was I going to measure my success along the way?
Once I had the answers to these questions, it had felt like a huge weight had been lifted off my shoulders! The project felt clearer. I was organized. I was energized. I was excited and ready to really produce a great project!
Wrap-Up
With any work project, it’s important to start with the end in mind, have a map of where you’re going, how you’re going to get there, and put systems in place to ensure you’re successful and manage your time and energy effectively. That ended up being the theme of my week 1 and how I really set myself up for a successful project. Time to get to it!
