I find it helpful to envision a time horizon when I take on a project.
Especially for gig- and project-based work, it’s valuable to know how long it’s going to take.
An arranging project for a client? Depending on the time of year, I can anticipate first contact to finished project in three months.
A book is going to take me a year or two from first brainstorming to completed draft.
A blog has a time horizon of thirty minutes from when I sit down at the computer.
On the longer end of the scale, when I volunteered to coordinate the Michigan All-State Jazz Choir, I committed, at least in my head, to ten years to make sure it was on solid ground.
I committed to directing the Aces and Shades of Blue until I retire. For the Aces, that will be around 25 years from when I founded them!
Ongoing projects, without time horizons, can end up feeling nebulous and eventually oppressive. You can’t escape and you don’t have any sort of a plan for graceful exit.
Add a time horizon, and suddenly all sorts of higher level planning can start to happen, because you can see the trajectory, the timing of major events, and when things make sense to happen.
Before you start your next project, ask yourself what the time horizon is. It’ll help make the project really come into focus.