Sara Orellana
By Sara Orellana
Have you ever faced a task at work that was so large, you had no idea where to start? And as you pondered your starting point, some smart mouth reminded you that you eat an elephant one bite at a time. I hate that saying. And I am truly annoyed by the people who offer that advice. But I digress.
Large tasks. When combining a large task with the list of other tasks, we can feel buried, stressed, under attack, and unable to focus. Large projects can make many people frantic. Thankfully, I have learned a system that works for me.
The other day I was watching a Ted Talk over unlocking the true power of your brain. The main point was this: clear up space in your brain. Stop wasting precious memory on tasks and ideas. When you have a task or idea, if you write it down, you can stop worrying about it.
When I am overwhelmed, if I can write everything down, get it all out, I am calmer, and my brain then has the capacity to think. Combining what I do to combat stress with the lessons of this TED Talk gave me an idea.
Buy a planner. Make a detailed to-do list daily – weekends too – and have a place to write all your ideas down, and then focus on only one thing at a time. This method is working far better for me than I had hoped. But, given a large project, how do I apply this thought process?
The task at hand, the project, is your final destination. If you start at the end and work your way backwards, you can create daily action steps which will allow you to successfully complete projects, tasks, and daily items.
Here is the process. Working from the end, create a list of any skills you will need to master. What will you need to learn in order to complete this task? If you don’t need to learn anything, can you break the task into three to four chunks? These are your long-term goals. Looking at the time you have to complete this project, and the long-term goals you just created, set two to three milestones. These are your celebrations -- your rewards for getting to this point. Milestones are the most important steps. Do not skip them. If you want to maintain your momentum, you must stop and celebrate how far you have come. Celebrations can be going for a walk, getting ice cream, or simply taking a nap. They don’t have to be huge.
Looking at your long-term goals, break these down into three to four chunks. The chunks are things you have to learn, or smaller portions of the large task. For example, when I write a grant, a short-term goal can be getting the organization’s history.
The final step is breaking your short-term goals into three to five daily action steps. These are the things you will do every day that will ultimately bring you to the final destination.
I realize this process may seem laborious, tedious, or even childish. But when we focus on small portions of a task, and add in three to five daily steps, we won’t become overwhelmed, we allow ourselves time for setbacks, we free up memory, and we reach our ultimate goal much more quickly.
Sara Orellana is an independent entrepreneur who specializes in strategic planning, leadership, and grant writing. She can be reached at sara@3raptorconsulting.com.