Remember the scene in Clueless*, where Cher turns to Dee and, talking about the new girl, goes, “Ooooh project”? Well that’s me. Pretty much my whole world runs on lists and projects. I’m far from being a good organiser/leader/mentor/presenter/teacher/inventor or any other of the incompetences we’re judged on at work, but give me a self-contained project and I’m away.

There’s something about turning a task into to a project that makes it more fun. It feels like one of those tricks parents use to make their kids do something they don’t really want to do, but it’s a trick that still fools me. The best work projects are the ones you’re not really supposed to be doing. When you’re not supposed to be doing a project, you can’t have anyone tell you how it should be done, monitor your progress or add requirements.

There’s this whole thing about mashup applications being quick to develop. I wonder if it is really quicker to develop them, or just that they tend to be small self-contained projects that people do for themselves or with a few of their friends and so they can get a lot done quickly?

My current in-progress projects include: a birthday card, a thing to show people’s IM status in video, an entry for a work situational application competition, some kind of cloud identification wall chart and something to show blog archives in a nicer way.

* It may be a chick flick, but it’s a great film and I’m not ashamed to admit I like it.