Three layers for multi-passionate organization

As much as I love discovering new crafts, learn new things, feed my curiosity… I always use to get overwhelmed by all the things I want to do, and feeling like I’m not able to do everything, like I’m too scattered and there are just too many things for too little time. I still do sometimes, but if I remind myself to be patient and set realistic expectations, the way I organize projects takes care of the rest.

In the last post, I wrote about finding a combination of simplicity and effectiveness. I need a system simple enough that it’s easy to use and keep using, and effective enough to take things off my mind and bring clarity to the multi-passionate mind.

I also value a system that’s flexible: That doesn’t force me to organize too much when I don’t need to, but that allows me to organize very well when I do need to.

Without further ado, let’s go over how I organize my projects.

The system is based on three layers:

• Interests: Passions or hobbies

• Projects: Explorations of an interest

• Tasks: Small, actionable time blocks
  
  

Each of these are organized in relation to each other. Typically, tasks within projects and projects within interests.

I also organize each of these by the stage they’re in. The stages vary depending on the specific layer, but they’re generally: FUTURE/ CURRENT/ PAST.

Interests

Interests are the list of hobbies or activities I like to do. This list is created once and modified only when adding new hobbies. This layers is just the base of the system, it doesn't need a lot of organizing.

Examples of interests could be:

• Painting

• Playing guitar

• Making zines

Depending on your hobbies, in this list you would have some that are more specific or more broad. If you play an instrument, you might have “playing guitar” as a hobby, but if you play many instruments, you might put “music” as a hobby, and have individual instruments as projects.

I organize interests in three stages:

• Possible: I might want to try it sometime

• Current: I’m currently interested in this

• Past: I’m no longer doing this activity and don’t plan to

Projects

Projects is where the magic starts to happen for me. I use this list to collect ideas, see current projects, and past projects. It’s also what connects interests to tasks.

Projects can vary in:

• Specificity: A T-shirt brand vs designing one T-shirt

• Size: Running a blog vs designing a Christmas card

• Timeframe: Ongoing (blog), finite (making a zine), single-day (designing a poster), or seasonal/cycling (designing calendars)

Specificity, size and timeframe describe the different shapes projects can take, but that doesn’t mean my organization system needs to “know” what type of project each is. Out of these, I only categorize my projects by their timeframe, but that’s just a personal preference and doesn’t affect how the rest of the system works.

The main way I do organize projects is by stage:

• Maybe one day: Things that maybe I’ll do one day, long term

• Just an idea: Things I might want to do

• Soon: Ideas I want to get to next

• Incubating: Ideas I'm actively preparing for

• Active: Projects that are currently active

• Paused: Projects that aren’t active but I might return to

• Finished: Finite projects that are complete

• Cancelled: Projects that ended up not happening, and probably won’t in the future

You can simplify stages however you prefer, for example: IDEAS / ACTIVE / DONE / CANCELLED

Tasks

Tasks are blocks of time dedicated to a project or interest, that can fit into a day. They could also be specific or broad: “Write the draft for X” vs “Work on X project”.

Tasks are the layer that gets created and modified the most often, so I keep them very simple. All they need is a status: TO DO / DOING / DONE

How the layers are connected

Typically, inside an interest there’s projects, and inside a project there’s tasks:

(Let's ignore the fact that these look like cells)

But sometimes it isn’t that straightforward. In my case and probably in many multi-passionate people's cases, there are exceptions:

One project, multiple interests: There are projects that are connected to more than a interest, especially with multi-passionates. For example, a blog about art could combine writing, web design, painting…

No project: Some tasks can exist without a project, and just be connected to an interest. For example, you might have running as a hobby, but aren’t currently working on a project (like training for a 10k), so you’d just have tasks like “30 min run”. In this case, though, I’d probably skip putting the task in the system, unless I’m planning my day’s tasks.

Single-day projects: There might also be projects that take so little they could be practically be tasks: single-day projects like designing a poster or making a ceramic mug. For me, I’ll usually add these kinds of projects in my system when they’re still in their idea stage, just so I don’t forget about them. If it’s something I do one day spontaneously, I might just skip putting it in the system altogether.

So really, instead of the graph above where everything is contained within the bigger layer, my interests, projects and tasks relate to each other more like this:

Okay, but how, and where, literally, do I organize?

I personally use Notion, because their databases are extremely useful to make connections, filter items and have different views. But I don't just want to explain how I organize on Notion, because not everyone uses it. My goal is to offer a guide on the underlying method I use, so that anyone can apply it with whatever tools they prefer. The structure is simple enough that it can work in Notion, any other software, or even completely analog.

For anyone who is curious to know how I use this structure on Notion, I’ll walk through how I set it up in a future post. And maybe in another post, I'll explore different ways I'd approach using this method if I didn't use Notion.

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