Just struggling with projects...

[Jamie Elis]

Is there some sort of neat algorithm for project planning?

Most projects have a deadline or at least a time frame in which finishing would be desirable. Part of the desired outcome is finishing at the right time.

I have a hard time figuring out how a long a project will take. Even when I have experience with related ones.

This seems worse when I just do one action without planning the others.

Also, often, if I put a next action on my list but by the time I start it, something has changed in my thinking or awareness and it is no longer the next action. Although fortunately both actions are usually in the same context.

Once I get started, I don't want to stop until I am done or too tired to work on it anymore but I usually have to get off the project to something routine or handle some issue.

I end up not starting because I want to have a two hour block to work on most projects. I guess that looking over the requirements, proposing some possible outline of steps and a time frame might need to be the next action sometimes and maybe that just needs to be acknowledged as a two hour actions.

Thank you in advance for your reactions and suggestions.