You are that typical Type A, obsessive compulsive, obscenely organized project manager who knows every file location on the share drive and can recite every task under that Microsoft Projects spreadsheet faster than you can say the alphabet backwards. You fancy gaining headway on a project before your manager can even finish assigning you your next project. Your mind erupts with forward, backward and side-way thinking ideas the instant you realize that project is officially under your name. You are project management dynamo and hardly anything gets past you until you are mid-launch and have more projects than you can count on your own two hands – and even then, your peers think you are on top of it all. Being the first to arrive and the last to leave is now the norm and no longer the exception. You are a project manager at heart.

When I decided to become a project manager, I hardly realized how passionate I was about this role and little did I know, ten years down the line, this profession would follow my every career move. From my very first project kickoff in healthcare to running a PMO at a neuro-marketing company to ‘a day and a life’ in the agency world and now, a content marketing manager at a brand protection company, project management has been at the forefront of each vocation. When you live and breathe project management in your day-to-day profession, it’s fair to say that it not only impacts your way of thinking and your approach for making decisions, but it begins to alter your lifestyle including those spare hours outside of the nine to five – your personal life.

It might have been sometime between putting together my first creative brief and taking some project management classes that I had begun to realize the value of thinking like a project manager. And sometime between then and now, the idea of a project management mentality has rapidly become more of a gray area and has impacted the choices I made outside of the office and in my own personal time. It’s that moment when your professional career intersects your personal life do you realize that you either really love your job or you are probably just working too many hours. I’d like to think that it’s the former, that I really love my job.

As a project manager at heart, I am inclined to say that I am a planner, and I relish and take pride in coming up with resolutions and goals for the year. I create ‘do’ and ‘done’ checklists, use apps such as Goodreads to track the progress of my books, create restaurant lists, keep a food diary and plot all of my activities out on my Google Calendar. If you think that’s a bit OCD, you haven’t heard about what others in my project management class are doing. Some have gone so far as using a Kanban board to manage their children’s and spouse’s weekly activities. I can’t say that I’ve done that yet, but I do intend on keeping up with my goals for the year by working against milestones and tracking them to the schedule. Thus far, I’m on track for reading 30 books, trying three new restaurants per month, watching at least five Netflix movies per month and going to the gym three to four times a week. While managing my own leisure activities on my Google Calendar has kept me on my toes and contributed to my own personal well being, I also found that tracking my dog’s schedule did the same for me and others involved in his life.

It might have begun with the personal anxiety I felt for leaving my dog, Cooper at home for well over ten hours a day, but I had to do something about it. As many can attest having a pup can sometimes be more or less comparable to having a forever two to three year old. Their behavior is sometimes unpredictable and the fact that you’re leaving them alone for a long period can influence their way of life, routine and their thinking. I decided to project manage his life by also putting together his very own Google Calendar and mapping out his weekly schedule. Spending time with the grandparents, enjoying ‘cocktail hour,’ going for a walk with his dog walker, spending the day at doggy daycare, getting a bath and getting groomed – all of these are now events on the project calendar. It keeps him busy, it keeps his caretakers informed and it gives me peace of mind knowing he is active.

Using Google Calendar to track events, round up friends and family members, and set up reminders is one of the key indicators that your personal life is being affected by your career as a project manager. Oftentimes, it’s hard enough to pick out dates for your friends and family, but when you do, it’s like celebrating another milestone. But what about the events themselves when you set the date?

For some reason, I, along with my sister, get nominated to be on point to arrange nearly all of the family gatherings and events. Someone needs to come up with the location and theme for the event while taking into consideration everyone’s personal nuances and opinions. Someone needs to plan the logistics and map out the floor plan along with all the activities throughout the day(s). Someone needs to run the ideas by the family to make sure everyone is onboard and feels like they have a say in the planning process. Someone needs to arrange for the decorations and the meals, and skillfully delegate tasks to the family members. Someone needs to come up with a spreadsheet to divvy up the finances and collect – thank goodness for Paypal, Venmo, Square and physical checks. Someone as adept as a project manager will do this and make sure the event actually happens.

To this day, I couldn’t imagine a marketing career without the influence of project management. While it had started as a profession by day, soon taking over bits and pieces of my personal life, I am grateful for the person I have become, the partnerships that I have built and the outcomes I have experienced overtime. Do you have a career that you’re so enamored by that it has also intersected with your personal life? If so, what is it?