Students who have taken a course in Project Management will understand what a critical path in an engineering project means. But for the sake of the laymen or those who haven’t taken the course yet, the critical path is defined as the “longest sequence of activities in a project plan which must be completed on time for the project to complete on due date.”
How about we apply that in life?
Our lives can be considered as projects that are constantly in progress, minus the definite due date and costs. We can apply in our everyday living the basic project management techniques that will make us not miss what we can say as critical paths.
Humans have different activities in life, like in any engineering project. There will always be sub-events in our life that will be part of the life’s journey but will not matter as much to be included in our own critical path. It is only the individual who holds his or her life that can determine which activities and nodes is considered a part of the critical path.
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In our own project called life, we must go through the traditional project management phases, which are the initiation, planning and design, and execution.
In the initiation stage, we are bound to ask ourselves what the goals we have in our lives. What do we live for? What is there to do in life?
The next stage, the planning and design, is where we plot on how we will achieve our visions, our purpose. Only then that the execution will follow when the two are already established.
One important project management concept that needs to be applied in life is scheduling. Given the right resources like time, budget, level of effort, and relationships, the schedule of life can be well-achieved. It’s up to us on how we follow our schedule and on our own pace. We can only dictate our own project’s schedule.
Photo by DHI Scotland
Following the schedule is following the critical path. One critical path creates focus in the project, so it’s better that we also do the same.
By thing of our schedules as critical paths, we can take the steps one by one, according to vision and purpose, so that we will be able to succeed in our project called life.
There is no definite completion date of your project too, as it can come as early as 32 or as late as 65. What’s important is that you follow your life’s critical path, amid the many activities, and you’ll know where your life will bring you.
Source: Tech Target | Engineering Career Coach
