How I run group projects without losing the rest of my week

Group projects expand until they eat your personal deadlines. I stopped volunteering to “just tidy the slides” and started treating the project like a mini module with owners and dates.

Owners before vibes

In the first meeting I push for a one-page split: name, deliverable, due date, and where the file lives. If someone cannot name their piece, they do not have one yet.

Protect your solo work on the same calendar

I block my own essay or lab write-up as protected time the same way I protect a lecture. Group messages can wait an hour. Your mark in the other module will not.

When the group needs a slot, I offer two options that sit outside those protected blocks — not “whenever.”