Creating “Partnership” Projects

Fall is a time of the year when there is so much to do! Summer is over and there seems to be a billion projects on the horizon: Home improvement projects, landscaping projects, visits with family and friends, health and fitness commitments and so much more.

Martha and I often sit down together and put our endless list of commitments into different projects. We call them “partnership” projects. We call them partnership projects because we recognize that it will take both of us to be 100% committed to get the projects competed.

A project is designed to realize the vision of what you want to fulfill at some future time. Projects are time-limited, often two to thee months, and are designed around a specific, measurable result.

For instance, we’ve recently had some home improvement plans, such as insulating the basement, repointing brickwork, cleaning the basement, rebuilding the front stairs and pruning the trees in our garden. We put all those activities into a home improvement project. Here are steps we used in planning a “partnership” project:

• Create what you want to accomplish in your partnership project. Write it down in the following way: “Our project is to have accomplished _____________ by this specific date ___________________.” Be as specific as possible. For example, “Our project is have completed all five home improvement tasks by December 15, 2014.”
• Identify any concerns you have about the project. Identify any disempowering individual or shared perspectives that might unwittingly be shaping your relationship to the project. Examples of perspectives might be, “This project is going to be a lot of work to accomplish” or “This project will take a lot of our free time” or “The costs of the project may get out of control.” By identifying your current perspectives, concerns, or anticipated obstacles, you are better able to deal powerfully with them.
• Next, brainstorm several empowering perspectives and choose a new way to view partnership project. Imagine the accomplishment of your project. Invent other perspectives from which to view your partnership project. Look at what you intend to accomplish from these other perspectives and get the impact of each new perspective on your project. Then, together choose a perspective that empowers both of you. For instance, “It is fun to beatify our home with the help of others!”
• Create the actions and the interim accomplishments necessary to fulfill the partnership project and put them into a timeline. Once you have an empowering perspective for your project, imagine yourselves in the future having accomplished what you set out to do. Look from the future accomplishment of the project. Brainstorm all the interim accomplishments that will occur during the project and all the actions that you will take. Put the actions and accomplishments in a timeline. Use whatever format works for you.
• Name the project. Align on a name that expresses the project in a creative and self-expressed way. Martha and I named our partnership project, “Home Beautiful.” The name can call forth the perspective of the project, your values and your vision for the project or the future accomplishment of the project.
• Schedule project meetings. Make sure you have a plan to meet on a regular basis. In the beginning, it is often wise to meet frequently, say once per week for an hour or so, and then meet less frequently or as needed as your project progresses.

To date, Martha and I have completed a number of our home improvement goals. We had workmen insulate the basement and repoint brickwork in the basement. After Labor Day, Martha and I cleaned the basement. During this time, our gardener did a beautiful job pruning the trees in our garden. We are now contracting with a mason to come and rebuild our front stairs. The work we want to do around the house is more fun when we are aligned with a clear vision, plan to get it done and doing it together!

If you have a lot to do, sit down with each other and create a project or two! You’ll have more fun accomplishing what you want in your lives in partnership!

Posted in Partnership Marriage