The Project Organizer is a workspace for creative projects: the book, the series, the collection, the shop, the album, the thing you keep meaning to finish. It keeps each project's finish line, the rounds of work that get it there and the next few tasks, so you can stop carrying them in your head.

It is built to be used in seasons. There are no streaks, daily targets or productivity scores anywhere in it, and no due dates unless the work has a real one. A project can rest for a month and still be here, with a note telling you where you stopped.

How it is laid out

The home page runs from top to bottom.

• Capture and Now: the inbox and the tasks you are working on this session or this week.
• Where you stopped: your latest session notes, the newest first.
• The projects, the first row of tabs: Projects, Rounds, Tasks and Archive.
• The work, the second row: Plan, Desk and Resources. Desk holds the Inbox, a deadline calendar and your session notes.
• This round, Real deadlines and Where things stand, at the foot of the page: the round you are in, any real deadlines and your projects by state.

Projects sit at the center. Every round, task and session note links to the project it belongs to, so opening a project shows you everything attached to it.

How a project moves

• Considering: an idea you might take on. It costs nothing to keep it here.
• Active: you are working on it, in rounds.
• Resting: on purpose, for now. A resting project keeps everything you knew about it.
• Finished: it reached its finish line. Write what it became under Where it ended. It moves to the Archive tab.
• Let go: you decided to stop. Letting go is a decision. Write why, in a line. It moves to the Archive tab too.

Keep the Active column short. One or two projects at a time is plenty for most people; three is a lot.

Rounds

A round is a finite stretch of work on one project: five weeks is a good default. It has a finish line someone else could check, a decision date or two and an end. On a decision date you look at how the round is going and choose: carry on as planned, run it light or change the plan. At the end, the End-of-round review writes a short handoff, so the next round starts from a page you can read.

Tasks