When project management, storytelling, and death collide

Have you ever worked on a group project? How did it go? From my experience, I bet that sometimes it was ok if you got really lucky, but usually, it was a hot mess. To get lucky, you needed the right people in the right roles (for them and the group) and clear expectations. Project management was probably not part of the instructions.

Even as a kid in the first years of school, I knew that there was a better way to execute a project than smashing random kids together and letting them figure it out. Now, I totally get where the teacher was coming from and that it was important that we figure out all the things. However, even a small amount of project management flair would have made all the difference.

I’ve come along way since those early days of all or nothing when it came to projects. Either I was able to bend my group to my will or I just did all of the work and smoldered in bitterness.

My direction in college swung from a journalism degree to a construction management degree. Thus solidifying my future as a person who would find a way to make project management part of their career. I really thought I would have a career managing teams to build buildings. But the recession in the 2000's laughed at that plan. More on that in another post.

These days I work as a project manager in the online space with people who have teams or are ready to start building their team. It’s literally what I went to school for except I’m building empires instead of buildings.

What does all of this have to do with Legacy? 

My brain is happiest when I’m solving problems and helping people find their way forward so that they can get back to what they love doing. What I love doing using Legacy is providing tools and resources to help facilitate storytelling projects and conversations in any situation.

For Legacy, this means that I’m bringing all of my experience and expertise to the table to help you figure out how to integrate storytelling into what you are already doing or implement a storytelling project in your specific situation. 

Every post, video, and audio clip has a piece that will help you integrate storytelling into your life. Usually, the piece is obvious and right upfront. I don’t like burying the lead or making it hard for you to find the thing you need. Who has time for that? That habit comes from years of wanting things to be efficient. The methodologies and processes inside Legacy reflect that. 

There are literally hundreds of pages of content inside the Legacy World. As a result, the past few months have been spent organizing things and creating roadmaps and guides to help you find what you need.

Stories matter in every moment. Creating those moments where the stories can be heard isn’t always easy. Legacy helps to make it just a bit easier to navigate and hold space for your storyteller.

Intentional Project Management

Knowing what you need to do to get where you want to go to is huge. Trying to work through a project especially a family project without a clear plan is a recipe for disaster and heartache. To address this and show you how the Legacy Recorder resources can support your efforts, I’m dedicating a Saturday morning to workshop it with you. I would love to have you there if you are ready to talk through what you are thinking and fill in the blanks.

On Aug 1, I’ll be holding the workshop to walk you through how to problem solve and get set up for project success. If you are thinking “Gael, I’m not doing a project or looking to take on anything big right now”, I get it. This workshop is for you if you

• have been trying to work on your own story,
• help someone else with theirs, or
• have been trying to figure out activities for work.

Resource

Staying in the theme of project management… I’d like to share a tool with you. You know how you cut or copy something on your computer and then promptly forget to actually paste it somewhere and then copy over it? No? Just me? Ok cool. 

I use something called Ditto to keep myself from losing it when I copy over that thing I needed. It’s been a magical addition to my life and workflow and a legit lifesaver in some cases.

Ditto is an extension to the standard windows clipboard. It saves each item placed on the clipboard allowing you access to any of those items at a later time. Ditto allows you to save any type of information that can be put on the clipboard. This includes text, images, html, custom formats, etc. And it’s free!

I’m not a Mac so I can’t recommend my favorite 😜

To wrap things up here at the end… I love that everything I love is wrapped up in Legacy. And I love that you are here for it. Thank you for taking the time to read this and bringing more stories into the world.

Happy Writing,

Gael