The Art of Juggling Projects

That’s a little misleading. It should be, the Art of Not Juggling Too Many Projects

Introduction

I, like any other writer, dream of seeing my work in print (or e-ink). I have half-a-dozen ideas that I want to get down on paper or onscreen, but with too many things on the go, I’m going to end not completing any of them on time. This blog post is about learning to manage writing workload and hopefully, by the end of it, I will have prioritised my own workload. Talking about my workload, this is what I’ve got going on at the moment:

• Amendments to my thesis
• First draft of Alauddin
• World-building for Farmer, Soldier
• First draft of my seerah project
• Blogging on website and Substack

The Struggles of Multi-tasking

There are a number of metaphors that come to mind about multitasking; spinning plates, juggling balls, etc. All of them sound chaotic and a recipe for disaster. We can only split our focus so many times before it gets too much. Humans are capable of multitasking, but we’re not very good at it. We can either do one thing really well, or two or more things with diminishing returns in quality. Multitasking is actually rapid task-switching, which places strain on brain networks responsible for focus and control, leading to increased errors and slower performance. This has an impact on efficiency and long-term memory. The science actually suggests that multi-tasking reduces productivity, increases stress and leads to poor decision making. On the other hand, mono-tasking has shown to be more effective, allowing for higher productivity and cognitive function.

Strategies for Balance

You may argue that its all well and good to say that multitasking is bad, but we have multiple tasks to complete. That’s were prioritising comes in useful and time-blocking your diary so that you have dedicated time for each project. For prioritisation, I like the Eisenhower Principle.

So you organise the tasks that you have coming up based on their level of urgency and importance. Therefore, a task is either urgent and important, urgent but not important, not urgent but important and not urgent and not important. Lets apply that to my projects

• Urgent and Important: Thesis Amendments (deadline is August 2025)
• Urgent and Important: Blogging (weekly)
• Urgent but Not Important: First draft of Alauddin (launching in 2026)
• Not Urgent but Important: My seerah project (no launch date set)
• Not urgent and not important: Worldbuilding for Farmer, Soldier (first draft aim 2027)

So based on the matrix I should be working mostly on my thesis amendments, as there is a hard deadline and its an important piece of work. I should schedule a time slot every week to write my blog posts. I should also schedule regular writing time for the first draft of Alauddin because if I’m launching it next year, I need to have at least completed three drafts to make it publishable. My seerah project doesn’t have a deadline, so I could potentially set a weekly slot for it. Last of all, worldbuilding for my future (bestselling and award winning) novel is something that will, for now, will have to wait.

Embrace the Journey

Having a lot of plates spinning, balls in the air, arrows to my string, is testament to my creative ambitions. But ambitions have to be tempered with reality and time (unfortunately, I don’t have those infinity stones so can’t mess with time and reality). Therefore, we should set realistic goals and targets, that are based on time and availability. As for dealing with procrastination and distractions, you can read an earlier post I wrote, A Man of Focus.

References

Johannsen L, Müller H, Kiesel A, Koch I. (2021). The State-of-the-art of Research into Human Multitasking: An Editorial. J Cogn. 4(1). doi: 10.5334/joc.185.

Malesu, V. K. (2025). Why your brain struggles with multitasking (and what to do instead). News-Medical.Net.