Eating An Elephant Workshop, May 19, 2013
How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time!
- Make a list of 5 to ten things that you would either like to do, must do, or should do, but don’t seem to have enough time to get them done. These are your “elephants”.
- Pick an “elephant” on your list that is a priority.
- Write a list of the steps that you would need to do in order to get the task done; this should be more like an overview. (e.g. putting in a new vegetable garden: choose location, dig out area, plant vegetables, maintain.)
- Now, break it down even further: write a more detailed list of what you would actually need to do and write down how much time you think each item would take. These are the “bites”.
E.g. - Here's more on the "Putting in a new vegetable garden" analogy:
- Choose location by thinking about proximity to water & house, sun exposure, etc. (30 min)
- Figure out how much area you want to plant – based on how much you want to plant, and how much you reasonably would want to maintain, etc. (30 min)
- Layout the borders of the garden with string or spray point. (30min-1 hour)
- Dig out garden area; remove sod if necessary. (2-10 hrs, depending on scope of project)
- Buy soil improvements if necessary (30min-1 hour)
- Add improvements to soil (1-3 hours, depending on size)
- Layout rows, mulch between rows to keep weed growth down (1-3 hours)
- Purchase seeds/plants depending on preference (1-2 hours)
- Plant seeds/plants, watering well after each session (1-2 hours)
- Water and weed regularly (30 min or so per session)
- Decide reasonably how much extra time you can allocate in a particular day – 1 hour? 2? 15 minutes? This will change from day to day, but try to allocate at least some time. Mornings might be best for some (before work), or evenings.
Tips:
- Keep on task! Since the ‘bites’ are well defined, try not to get distracted by phone calls, Facebook, etc.
- Try to keep the ‘bites’ as small as possible, time-wise. You can always do two or more bites at a time, but might feel frustrated if you can’t finish a whole bite at once. For those big tasks (e.g. digging out the garden), separate it into smaller bites – perhaps just 30 minutes of digging, until the task is complete.
- Underestimating the amount of time that it takes to do a task is always an issue, and another cause for frustration. If you’re really not sure, make your best guess, then multiply by two! Honestly, in reality, this will probably be more realistic!