Break It Down. Projects, Daunting Tasks, and Whatever Else.
A typewriter broken down into its individual parts.
We’ve all heard stories about accomplishing massive projects. Some Elon Musk-like prodigy workaholic works ridiculous hours and creates the next biggest invention of the century.
It can seem like a daunting and all-encompassing task but not everyone needs to work themselves into the ground to get it done and secondly, more people than you can imagine are accomplishing huge projects on a consistent basis.
Everyone can accomplish this.
It’s all about perspective, consistency of work and persistence.
Break down your big, multi-step, complex projects and goals into manageable pieces.
Break them down.
As small as you need.
Sometimes, it can be smaller than you need.
Smaller can make accomplishing it easier, and that endorphin rush of completing more stuff can be a boost as well.
Look. Everyone has large, ambitious goals and projects to get done.
But, when faced with a big project or task, it can be daunting, paralyzing, overwhelming.
It can feel so overwhelming that it can be demoralizing. That you avoid thinking about it.
Maybe you just shut down. Go turn on the TV. Binge a Netflix show instead.
By setting priorities, breaking the bigger project into smaller tasks, the work is more manageable and more achievable.
FOUR IDEAS FOR BREAKING DOWN TASKS
Examine the parts of the task. Figure out step-by-step what you need to do. And I mean step-by-step. The clearer you know what needs to get done, the easier it will be to realistically achieving.
Break down tasks into 30-minute jobs. People can’t work for 5 hours straight. Having items managed within 30 minutes can help keep you motivated, hungry to keep going, and generate a decently sized list of accomplished things. If your one step is “Clean the house” versus “Clean the sink”, “clean the toilet”, “clean the bathtub”, “clean the mirror”, “clean the countertop”, “clean the linens”, “Put the laundry in the washer”, “Fold the clean laundry”, it can be much more demoralizing that after 3 hours “clean the house” still hasn’t been completed. Smaller, achievable jobs lets you feel a sense of progression and accomplishment.
Breaking down tasks lets you further categorize them into urgent vs. non-urgent and important vs. non-important. Piggybacking off the introduced concept last week, the Eisenhower Matrix builds prioritization and delegate-able tasks. This lets you work more efficiently, set priorities for yourself, and target the things that matter most.
Say it aloud. Talking about your steps out loud can force you to organize your thoughts and ideas. No one even has to be in the room with you to listen. The main thing is that by articulating it verbally, it forces you to make a coherent thought or plan. The idea must be grammatically and thoughtfully filtered into speech so it must be made more concrete and not live in your head as an abstract concept.
And yeah, I get it. Reading this from me makes sense intellectually but it can still be a hard thing to do.
For me, I think it can also be helpful to realize what other things can be accomplished with a little persistence and dedication.
So here’s some massive things you can do by taking smaller daily routines seriously. Or…you know….other unbelievable facts that are the accumulation of daily or regular production.
1. Just read 20 pages a day, you can complete eighteen 400 page books in a year.
20 pages per day x 365 days per year = 7300 pages per year. 7300/1225 = nearly six War And Peace length books. 7300/552 = thirteen The Book Thief length books. 7300/279 = twenty-six Pride and Prejudice length books.
I suck at reading consistently. I enjoy it but never make time for it. This statistic shocked me. I don’t think I’ve ever read more than 5-8 books in a year so finding out I can complete 18 books in a year, that’s crazy.
2. Your body creates about 320lbs or 145kgs of poop a year - just a little more than the weight of an adult panda.
With an average daily amount of about 14 ounces (400 grams), the total poop production in a week's time would be about 6 lbs. (2.8 kilograms). In a year, a single person would yield about 320 lbs.
I’m pooping out over twice my weight in a year. But you don’t realize it because it’s just a small amount each time. Now imagine whatever giant project you as a giant turd. You just need to poop a little out each day.
3. Literally anything Dr. Stone Makes in Dr. Stone Manga
He makes sulfa drug in a stone age techless world. How? He has a roadmap with each step needed.
4. Working the 40-hour work week.
Let’s say that the average Joe works 40 hours a week, from the age of 20-65 and gets two weeks of vacation every year (I grabbed this information from an American site - hence the crappy vacation accumulation). In that time, average Joe will have worked a total of 90,360 hours of his life working for the man. Now, 40 hours a week is a manageable number. 90,000 hours doing anything makes it feel like you could accomplish anything with that amount of time.
People say it takes 10,000 hours to master something. You could master 9 fields.
So when in doubt, boil down whatever you’re doing into steps. Small steps make light work. Light work over a long duration make huge accomplishment.