Adam Oster, Novelist

As an Information Science and Technology major, it turns out a big part of what is expected to be learned is the skill of project management. As someone who has spent a lot of time managing projects, I honestly felt as though this was a ridiculous thing for anyone to expect me to learn. I mean, sure, I knew there were concepts that I wasn’t using, because I don’t exactly follow any sort of rules for project management, but I really just assumed it would mostly entail the simple basics of thinking and then doing. Things I do normally, but, you know, with a few more rules set around them.

And for the most part, I was correct. But then, I started realizing that there are all these cool tools to do these things that I’ve been doing in my head for forever. And they do them far better.

The specific item that I’ve been working with today is called a Gantt Chart. This is, quite simply, one of the dumbest charts ever. It simply allows you to split a project up into multiple different steps, along with estimations of how long you think it will take to complete the project, and even the ability to assign them to different people, giving you not only a relatively good estimate of how long a project will take, but also an easy way to see how delays in one step can impact the turnaround time of the overall project.

It’s so damned simple. I’ve even spent months decrying why anyone would ever feel the need to use it because it’s so simple. But the more I look at it, the more I find myself trying to figure out how I can use it in my daily life. Like, this thing is so dang stupid, but at the same time, it might quite possibly be the best way for me to manage all the things I’m trying to do at any given moment. It very likely could be the one thing I need to complete my vision board so I have a full line of sight into where things go as I move forward.

In other words: I might be in love.

This wasn’t love at first sight. No. But, I’ve grown to love it, little by little.

At the same time, this is also the one thing I have yet to have to implement into any of my coursework thus far, and I’m sitting here at the moment in which that is the exact thing that I’m supposed to do for my class, and instead of actually doing it, I’m writing about it and thinking about what other coursework I could do first. Because it also still really feels like busy work, and I’m already too busy.

So…maybe I don’t really like it that much.

Because, well, project management is really kinda the worst. Just let me do the thing already, and let’s stop planning for how to do the thing, right?

Stupid Gantt Charts…