Make it a habit to complete a time audit to track what you are doing at each phase in a learning project.
In business, we frequently underestimate the challenge of documenting step-by-step tasks that make up a process workflow. As learning designers, if we are not very careful, we will fall into the same trap. A lot of what we do is never fully documented as step-by-step processes. We leverage various frameworks such as ADDIE and Design Thinking but they are just that “frameworks” they do not clearly define all that is done by various learning and development roles step-by-step, with no task left unacknowledged.
It’s certainly a good practice to have a project plan with time allocated to various tasks and deliverables however, you’ll likely be surprised to see the number of tasks eating away at your time and energy that are never acknowledged. For example: Word-smithing documents to communicate a clear message in the context of a relatable story is an essential task in learning design that takes a significant amount of time and is demanded at each phase in the design process.
It is very easy to minimize how much time and effort is required to author coherent consistent messaging across learning assets, based on input from various stakeholders across an organization.
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If you don’t think it’s important to prioritize taking time to recognize, acknowledge and document the time and effort that goes into aligning messaging across learning assets circulating within your organization, don’t be surprised or feel unappreciated when people take it for granted and don’t recognize how important and time consuming it is.