Step-By-Step Is The Way
A lot of people have told me that they find me extremely efficient and with the ability to get things done really quickly… I don’t say this to gloat, but to say that it really is just a matter of breaking tasks down into chunks that motive you.
Where does this come from?
I think I learned this skill through two things I did in my youth - playing guitar and playing video games.
Video games have a fantastic ability to break a huge quest in to small manageble chuncks. Want to be the saviour of the world? Start by killing 10 boars. Play enough video games, and your mind will learn to break tasks into these chunks. Essentially, this is what we call gamification. Not in the sense of getting rewards for your tasks, but breaking tasks into something that motivates you. And it’s essential that you find this out for yourself.
This also continued over into when I started playing guitar. Instead of focusing on learning an entire song or technique, just start by learning small parts of it. Learning to play guitar also required discipline, which video games don’t do in the same way. And discipline + chunking (which I will call it now) is the real superpower.
In Practice
So what does this look like in practice? Well, let’s take writing a thesis as an example (which I’m doing right now).
It’s a HUGE task, with an enourmous amount of research, writing, analysing and reading required. To overcome this, it’s about chunking and disciple.
Writing Example:
Discipline: Write each day
Chunk: Write 100 Characters
You’re commiting yourself to write each day, but the actual goal is so small that it actually seems really easy to get started with. This doesn’t mean that this should be the only goal that you accomplish that day (you would never get anywhere then), but it should be part of a group of chunks that you want to accomplish.
But how do you build this discipline?
Essentially also by breaking things down into chunks. If you want to start writing each day, what is the first step that you need to overcome? Maybe opening up Word or Google Docs? Dedicate yourself to open up the software each day and the stop there. Build that habit, and once you are comfortable in that, extend upon that with writing 10 words or whatever.
Now of course, that’s hardly efficient! But the point is, you won’t be efficient to start with. Efficiency comes through practice and patience.
