*Project Planning

Lately, work has been really busy for me.

> Instance 1: Last Tuesday (11 June), I missed a crucial meeting with my US counterpart, which led to a big discussion with my manager. I attended a 7 pm meeting and then left at 7:30 pm to buy supplements for the next day's trip. I wasn't aware of an 8:00 pm meeting as I had received a cancellation notice at 5:00 pm. When I checked my calendar, there was no meeting scheduled. Later, at 8:45 pm, my manager messaged me asking why I hadn't joined the call. I was surprised and mentioned that I had joined at 7:00 pm. It was then that I realized I had missed a meeting scheduled for 8:00 pm. I'm still unsure why I didn't receive a notification about the meeting on my phone.

> Instance 2: I have a lot of pending tasks, many of which are time-consuming. These tasks are tedious mainly because the software's user interface is outdated and not user-friendly. There's a lot of manual work involved, and it's challenging to automate these tasks.

To manage these situations, I decided to rely on a single software tool for task planning. I used to use various planning tools like Smartsheet, To-Do List, Click-up, and notepad. However, I now block out time slots on my Outlook calendar for each task. I start my day at 9:30 am, and I dedicate 15 minutes to allocate tasks on my calendar. This way, I can easily adjust if any task takes longer than expected. Essentially, I've turned my calendar into a simple Kanban board. I mark meetings in green, tasks in red, and completed tasks in violet. This method seems to be working well for now. I hope this project planning approach continues to be effective.