I’m a driven, goal-oriented, spreadsheet-loving, list-writing person. I show up to work with a plan of action every day.
But sometimes when the job at hand is big and I have too many big tasks on my plate (hello, farm life!), it can be hard to motivate myself to start chipping away at it all.
My secret weapon against inertia is super simple. If I break all my tasks down into sections, or “bite-sized” pieces, they’re way more manageable.
This is not a novel concept: we cut up our food instead of trying to eat a whole pancake or steak at once. And any organizational tool worth its salt will teach you to “batch” similar tasks or items to gain efficiency/clarity. But I do think this familiar concept of breaking down huge projects into manageable steps is one that it’s easy to forget to apply, so consider this your friendly early spring reminder, whatever project is on your plate this season:
When the overwhelm creeps in and I feel like I’m not big enough… I need to take a few hours to
1. realign with my goals,
2. assess the big picture, and then
3. work backwards to break down the big pieces into do-able “bites.”
And remember the part about too many tasks on my plate? In order to effectively break things down, I might need to delegate some of the pieces. I might need to hire help for others, or outsource.
Remember to pace yourself.
And know that in my experience, every time I start to feel like throwing in the towel because the job is too big, the REAL problem isn’t the project… it’s my mindset about the project and my plan (or lack thereof) to conquer it.
