I’m telling myself “NEVER AGAIN!”

How many times have you said to yourself “I’ll never make that mistake again!”, only to find yourself in the same pickle just weeks or months down the road?

I’m disgustingly guilty!

This typically happens to me in the *middle* of a project — things are getting behind schedule, I’m waiting on content (again!), and I’m not sure this job is even worth the trouble.

I’m telling myself “NEVER AGAIN!”

But those feelings seem to vanish the second you get the final invoice paid and mark it complete in your project management system — and it’s onto the next!

But if you don’t memorialize those feelings and mistakes, it’s really easy to find yourself in them again.

To try and get myself out of this cycle, I’ve developed a simple “Post-Project Assessment” form that I’m going to start using at the completion of every project.

A few of the questions can be rated on a scale of 1-5:

• “Did the project stay in scope?”
• “Did the project meet the deadline?”
• “Did the project meet objectives?”
• “Was the project profitable?”
• “Would you do this project again?”

And a few of the questions require “fill in the blank” with a bit more detail:

• “What went well on this project?”
• “What was most challenging?”
• “What could I have done better?”

And thanks to the magic that is Airtable, these assessments can be conducted via a quick and easy form, stored in a database, and even produce an overall “score” for each project.

My aim for this assessment is to evaluate projects so that I can better recognize the types of projects that are a good fit, and the kind I should avoid.

Kind of like an “internal case study” on how good a project was for me, rather than how the project benefited the customer.

It’s a 5-minute task that I know could save me hours of frustration down the road. If nothing else, it will force me to make an assessment of myself and the types of projects I’m best suited for.