How quickly can you eat an elephant?

This year I have made great strides in accomplishing some of my goals.  In fact, some of the items I have accomplished have been on my mind for years, yet it only took me a few weeks to tackle them.  Why is that?  I learned how to eat an elephant quickly without getting indigestion.

You know how to eat an elephant, don’t you?  One bite at a time, right?  Sounds simple enough, but I found out there are a few guidelines that go along with eating an elephant.

Study the menu

Just as I try to make good choices about what I eat by selecting healthy foods from the menu, I have learned to do the same with tasks.  I keep a running list of everything I have to do.  It’s like a huge menu of choices.  Every day I get to pick from that list.  Some “meals” are huge tasks that will take a lot of time and others are like little snacks.  Some are good for me and others are like junk food with no nutritious value but still provide happiness.  Completing each one brings some sort of satisfaction.  Just as I try to eat balanced meals, I also try to select a balance of tasks from my list each day.  Each morning I study the menu so I can make the best choices.

Feed your cravings

I don’t know about you, but my tastes change from day to day. Some days I like my salads and raw veggies and other days I have cravings for McDonald’s fries.   When I can cater to my taste buds, I’m happy.  And we know life is all about being happy.  So when it comes to picking from my task list, I look for the items that will bring the most satisfaction.  If I’m craving some creative time, I’ll pick a new design to draw or an article to write.  I find I do a much better and often more efficient job of completing the task if I am already motivated to work on it.

Don’t bite off more than you can chew

Sometimes we have an overwhelming task that never gets started because it’s just SOOOOO big!  We know we should break it down into smaller chunks, but it’s still hard to fathom how we’re ever going to swallow it all.  In this case, don’t think of it as a meal.  Consider it a snack or an appetizer.  Tell yourself you’re just going to sample it and do just that.  I often “sample” new Girls Can’t WHAT? designs before I draw them.  In this case, “sampling” may simply consist of browsing the Internet for ideas and photos.

Think small frequent meals (with lots of snacks!)

You know you can accomplish any size goal just by whittling away the tiniest pieces.  But it’s not the size of the meal…it’s how often you eat!  With goals and todo lists, we often think that more is better and bigger chunks of time are more productive.  However, sometimes that can lead to indigestion aka stress.

Smaller chunks of time are often the most creative for me.  Sometimes they lead to larger chunks of time, especially if I’m in the groove, but those moments are often harder to come by.  And because I don’t force myself to consume the entire task, I feel free to work on it until I feel “full” and then move onto something else.

Take the above example of me “sampling” a new design.  Once I’ve gotten a taste for it, I usually want more.  The problem is often time and resources preventing me from eating the whole thing in one sitting (which is probably a good thing).  So rather than letting all that good effort go to waste, I need to…

Save the leftovers

As long as your goal is incomplete, then you have “leftovers”.  Each time I sample a task, I cross it out and add the “leftovers” to the end of my list.  Leftovers are great because they can be eaten at any time and once you have them, you are encouraged and motivated to eat them before they spoil.  Contrary to the typical “todo” list which leads us to believe we should start at the beginning and work our way down the list, the end of my task list is the most critical.  Those are the leftovers that I need to take action on soon.

I always start at the end of my list and work backwards.  This all sorts out organically over time, and eventually the beginning of my todo list becomes more like a long-term storage pantry and the end of my list is like fresh produce and leftovers that need to be consumed within a few days.

Variety is the spice of life

The one thing I have always hated about traditional time-management systems and organizational gurus is that they like to compartmentalize everything!  I get the whole “everything in it’s place” concept, but when it comes to getting stuff done, I don’t have the capacity to divide my days and weeks into nice neat little blocks of time for work and personal activities.  That NEVER works.  My schedule is peppered with random appointments, band gigs, rehearsals, my kids’ sports schedules, client work and somewhere in that I’m supposed to spend time with friends and relax.

Since my life is not divided into little boxes of time, neither is my menu.  I don’t have a “work” list and a separate “home” list.  I tried those and they failed miserably.  What works is ONE list with a variety of tasks to choose from each day.  Using intuition and some good old-fashioned common sense, I work through my lists and can accomplish ten times more than ever before.  The randomness of tasks breaks up the monotony of the day and in the end I feel like I’ve had a well-balanced day by selecting tasks from a variety of contexts instead of spending the entire day in “work mode”.

Eat your veggies

Some tasks are things we do frequently but aren’t really related to our goals, like paying bills or walking the dog.  These are like veggies.  Put them on your menu whether you like them or not. Ya gotta have them to keep things “moving” even if they’re just not that exciting by themselves.

Take your vitamins

There are always going to be tasks on my list that I just don’t want to do.  Cleaning toilets and mopping come to mind.  These are like vitamins.  They are necessary evils.  So if I may borrow from Mary Poppins for a moment, I’m going to suggest you take them with a spoonful of sugar.  Go scrub the toilet and then follow it up by picking something fun from your list.  You do have desserts on your menu, right?

Don’t forget dessert!

I throw in lots of dessert items as I think of them…books to read, things to buy, surfing the Internet.  A todo list is no fun if it is all work and no play.  If you think I’m joking, try it.  Put something fun on your list today.  I love alternating between work tasks and fun tasks.  Fun doesn’t have to mean non-productive.  For me, drawing is fun and I get to sell my artwork so it’s productive as well.  If it is making you happy then it is productive.

If it spoils, throw it out

In general we keep an eye on the foods in our refrigerator and pantry and try to plan meals around using those ingredients before they spoil, right?  My lists work the same way.  Each day I look at the very first page of my list and pick the first set of incomplete tasks on the page (usually 1-3 items)  I have to either decide to do those tasks or toss them as spoiled goods.  This is a great time to start sampling.  If I can sample the task and move the rest into the leftovers bin at the end of my list, then I can usually kickstart the project and move it to completion in a rather short period of time. If I try it and I don’t like it, then no harm done.  If it’s not a veggie or a vitamin then I can toss it.

So… how quickly can you eat an elephant?

Note: While this post is entirely my own, I do want to give my compliments to the chef to Mark Forster for his brilliant ideas on managing the task list and helping me get the right things done a lot quicker and tossing the rest. ;)