Achieve Goals + Resolutions With Bite-Sized Chunks
I hope your year is off to a great start!
Have you ever tried to put together a jigsaw puzzle with 500 or 1,000 pieces?
It takes a while…
And, needs to be done in more than one sitting.
One of the reasons we miss achieving our personal New Year’s resolutions or business strategies is that we try to accomplish too much at once. We approach the 1,000-piece goal as if it can be finished in one sitting.
We get frustrated… The finish line seems a million miles away… And, we lose motivation.
A better approach is to cut your goal into bite-sized chunks.
Take the big idea and cut it into milestones. Cut milestones into projects. And further slice projects into tasks.
You then tackle the smaller, easier to accomplish tasks. Each task another puzzle piece. Before you know it, you’ve achieved several projects and reached most of your milestones…
I know… this idea isn’t rocket science… but sometimes in our excitement (and impatience) to get things done, we forget the basics. I wish you the best in meeting your goals, achieving your resolutions, and creating truly innovative things.
I wish you the best putting that puzzle together.
Thanks again for your interest in Idea Sandbox!
Best to you,
Paul Williams
brainstormer, Idea Sandbox
Twitter:@IdeaSandbox
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Hi Paul,
I love this topic. We have recently begun using a personal kanban system to do exactly what you are describing. While it is sometimes difficult to breakdown goals into manageable chunks, the results of the effort have been great. In addition to being able to complete tasks regularly, the system allows for visual management of the status or each chunk. It also allows us to celebrate the small victories along the way. I saw a similar topic posted on HBR (http://blogs.hbr.org/hbsfaculty/2011/12/start-the-new-year-with-progre.html) and relayed the ideas of small victories to Kaizen activities from the world of Lean manufacturing.
My favorite question is “How do you eat an elephant?” Of course the answer is “One bit at a time”! I know you say it isn’t, but it sometimes feels like rocket science. lol
Over complicating it with my over thinking brain for sure but here is the problem I have with this and i’ve never been able to solve.
I think focus is important. You need to only focus on a few things at once. I know certainly I get overwhelmed very easy. I need to decide on a few things so I don’t hesitate on stuff, so I can separate thinking time from doing time and once I have decided I can just go!
The trouble I have is do you focus on the milestone or the overall goal? If you have the next milestone and the overall goal in your vision, suddenly your goals double (You’ve got the milestone and the goal), and suddenly 3 simple goals become 6 pieces of information in your head.
If you solely focus on the milestone, your goal losses a lot of it’s excitement. It becomes more about ticking something off a list and motivation is a lot lower.
Thoughts? Solutions?