How to get an overwhelming task done. Our 10 step recipe.

I love this quote from Henry Ford. Yes it’s an oldie but isn’t it easy – when you’re feeling overwhelmed- to forget it?!

So here’s a ten step  – and can I say, totally foolproof –  recipe to get started and enjoy that Overwhelming Task:

 

 

• Get pen and paper out. That’s quite directive but I think these things are always better worked out when scribbled rather than typed.
• Write down what the Overwhelming Task will look like when you’ve finished it. Include as much detail as you can muster. I do this by popping the name of the Overwhelming Task in a circle in the middle and then jotting down the details on little spider legs drawn from it.
• Sometimes just doing number 2 is enough to revitalise you into getting started. Funny but true. So if you don’t need to go any further, don’t!
• If you’re not ready to start, the next thing to do is to break the Overwhelming Task into four or five parts. I call them Big Buckets.
• Taking one Big Bucket at a time split each bucket into four or five smaller parts: which I call Middling-sized Buckets.
• And then take each Middling-sized Bucket and split it into four or five Small Buckets.
• This is probably as far as you’ll need to go – and I’ll tell you why in a minute – but if you still feel the buckets are a bit hard to get started on go one step further and divide each Small Bucket into Tiddling-sized ones.
• Assuming you stopped at the Small Bucket stage you’ll now have – wait for it – a mighty 64 buckets! That’s a very detailed breakdown of the Overwhelming Task by anyone’s standards. If I’d asked you to break down your Overwhelming Task into 64 bits in Step 1 you’d probably have dissed this there and then. But if you do this bit by bit – as we have in steps 4 to 6 – you won’t find this tricky to do at all.
• Now look at your 64 buckets. Which one looks the most FUN? Never mind which is the most important or logical to start with, if you’re feeling a bit floored by the Overwhelming Task you need to begin with something that makes you feel good.
• And finally, don’t worry about the other buckets yet. Just relax and get started on the Fun bucket. The lovely thing about the human brain is that while you’re working on this bucket it will be subconsciously (don’t you love it!) working out how to do the next ones.

 

 

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