Doable: The Girls' Guide to Accomplishing Just About Anything (2015)

STEP 2: DETAIL THE LITTLE TASKS

What does it take to win the prestigious Google Science Fair, an online science competition sponsored by Google, Lego, and National Geographic and Scientific American magazines, among others? For Naomi Shah, winner of the 2011 award in the fifteen-to-sixteen age category, it took a lot of passion, time, and organization, not to mention the willingness to move forward on her sometimes painstakingly slow research, one step at a time.

“In school, you’re given these assignments where people tell you the timeline and the timeframe that you’re supposed to finish them in. So you get like a worksheet in math and then the next day you have to come in with it completed. But in my own research, I didn’t work with a mentor. So I didn’t have someone say, ‘By Monday, I need you to have these articles read, and by next Monday, I need you to learn how to use X or Y equipment.’

“I had to kind of set those smaller goals for myself,” Naomi explains. “My research is one of the biggest parts of my life. I have school, and I really try to do well in school. I take advanced classes because I’m really interested in science and math. But then outside of school, I hang out with my friends. I’m a swimmer. And then I focus a lot of my time on my research.

“In order to make sure I don’t waste the time that I’m focusing on my research, I’ve learned to break it up into chunks so I can better fulfill whatever goal I’m trying to accomplish. So at the end of the day, my goal isn’t to come up with some type of breakthrough with my research. It’s to do a very small portion of it. It could be that at the end of the day, I’ll understand an article I’ve read. Or at the end of the day, I’ll have run two different trials in my experiment.

“I think writing out how I see myself progressing through a project and then working on it like that has really helped me. I think that’s going to help me in college too, where the professors aren’t going to be sitting on my head saying, ‘You know, you have to get this project done.’ Instead it’s going to be me mapping out my time into little chunks.”

Get Tiny

Naomi has gotten really good at step 2 of the Doable process: Detailing the Little Tasks. So good, in fact, that she is able to find time to make regular progress on her breakthrough research about how air quality affects lung health, particularly for people with asthma (hence the Google Science Fair win!).

While we started the Doable process by getting absolutely clear about what we’re trying to do, step 2 is about getting tactical. It’s about taking that clarity of vision and zooming in with a microscope. So when I say “detail the little tasks,” I’m talking minuscule. Literally, each and every tiny task associated with accomplishing the bigger-picture goal. Because no matter how badly you want to reach the goal, how clear you are on your Why for wanting to get there, and how specific you are about what the outcome should be, without taking the time to figure out the individual tasks to get there, you’ll be hard-pressed to cross the finish line.

When I was researching this book, I asked a slew of teens to tell me what prevented them from making progress on, let alone completing, all the small, medium, and big things they wanted to get done. One of the most common answers, no matter the size of the task, was a feeling I call overwhelm. Many teens said they just didn’t know how to get started, and therefore, they never began. As a result, their goals—whether lofty and inspired or practical and straightforward—remained these elusive, just-out-of-reach desires. On top of that, their inability to follow through and accomplish what they set out to do left them feeling guilty and frustrated. And it probably goes without saying that guilt and frustration aren’t the best ingredients for productivity.

The good news is, these teens aren’t alone—not knowing where to start is a common struggle for many would-be Doers. And the bigger the goal, the more overwhelm comes into play. In fact, big, hairy goals can lead to a twist on analysis paralysis—that condition where over-thinking leads to so much anxiety or uncertainty that a person stays completely stuck. But instead of overanalyzing, in this case, we’re underanalyzing. The big To Do is composed of so many unknowns that it becomes this mythical destination, unicorns and all, instead of a tangible, let’s-get-cracking-and-cross-this-baby-off-the-list kind of pursuit.

But just so we’re on the same page here, detailing the little tasks doesn’t only apply to big To Dos. Even the smallest, seemingly most doable tasks can become more achievable by breaking them down into small chunks. Then, like following a recipe for your favorite baked treat, you mix the ingredients one by one. Do this, and when you’re finished, you’ll have something to show for it.

This is a strategy Sarah Cronk of The Sparkle Effect uses in her everyday, crazily busy life juggling being a college student with being president of a nonprofit, not to mention everything else she crams into each day. Rather than panic (which would be the obvious and easy choice), Sarah focuses on small tasks.

“I know I’m going to start feeling better if I just pick one thing. Sometimes I just have to stop and do something as small as make my bed, wash a dish, go to the gym, or take a shower. At least it’s still productive and it’s getting me working toward something. It’s very important to focus on those little things until, by end of the day, I finish my To Do list,” Sarah explains.

BREAK IT DOWN, BABY

Sarah breaks down everything on her plate into smaller tasks as a way to get through her extensive daily list of To Dos. But this strategy is especially effective when applied to a specific goal. Here’s an example to demonstrate what it looks like, step by step.

Say Jessica has wanted to repaint her room for the past year. She detests the soft pink color of the walls. It’s so sixth grade—so not who she is now as a teenager and an artist with an edgy aesthetic.

Her parents are cool with her changing the color, but only on the condition that it’s 100 percent her deal. The way they see it, they’ve already painted her room twice, once when she was a baby and once when she was in middle school. “The pink is fine, and the paint is still in great shape. You’ll be leaving for college in two years anyway. Can’t you just live with it or cover it with posters?”

Sure, she could just make do, but she doesn’t want to. She wants her bedroom to be a room she loves and wants to spend time in. And she’s got the first Doable step, Defining Your To Do, covered. She knows:

1. What she wants to accomplish (painting her room blue)

2. How she’ll know she’s completed her task (her room will be blue)

3. Why she wants to do it (to reflect who she is as an artist)

Jessica’s even picked out the perfect color—Benjamin Moore’s #1638: Midnight Blue. Yet, though she’s had the paint swatch pinned above her desk since last year, that’s as far as she’s gotten. Going from the desire to have a blue room to actually making it happen just feels too hard. She’s never painted a room before and doesn’t know what’s involved, how much it will cost, or how long it will take. The result of these unknowns swirling around in her mind is a lack of action … of any kind. And so her room remains a color that is disconnected from the young woman Jessica has become.

Jessica needs to Detail the Little Tasks—break down absolutely everything that has to happen in order for her to move from point A (dissatisfied with her room color and desperate to paint it) to point B (happy and content with her repainted room).

At first glance, the tasks might seem pretty straightforward:

1. Pick a paint color.

2. Buy the paint.

3. Paint the room.

Boom. Mission accomplished, right?

Not necessarily. Though Jessica already has a paint color in mind, there’s a reason that’s as far as she’s gotten. Namely, she doesn’t know all the details involved for the next two tasks. On top of that, she doesn’t know what she doesn’t know—the tasks that are actually missing from the above list.

Because she has no experience painting rooms, the first thing Jessica needs to do is research. I’m not talking term paper-level research that would earn Jessica a PhD in interior design, but rather, a cursory look at what she needs to do if she’s going to see this thing through.

Luckily, getting information these days is as simple as tweeting a question, looking at Pinterest boards, or posting something on Facebook. And then there’s Google. When Jessica searches for the phrase “how to paint an interior room,” the search engine spits out more than 50 million results in less than a second, the first one being a step-by-step breakdown of everything a painter needs to know, courtesy of Lowe’s home improvement store.

So now that Jessica knows what painting a room entails, she can connect the dots by writing out absolutely everything she needs to do in order to achieve her goal. And when I say “everything,” I mean everything. Here’s what her list might look like:

1. Pick a paint color (already completed).

2. Google Benjamin Moore paints and find out what stores sell it in my town.

3. Measure the height and width of each wall to figure out the total square footage of the surface I need to paint.

4. Call the store to find out how much paint I need to buy and ask how much it will cost.

5. Google instructions for how to paint a room; talk to Jeff’s older brother (a contractor) and ask him for some tips.

6. Make a list of the painting supplies I need to buy (rollers, painter’s tape, brush, sand paper, and so on).

7. Ask my parents what paint supplies we already have that I can use. For anything I need that we don’t have, ask Jeff’s brother if I can borrow from him.

8. Gather supplies.

9. Make sure I have enough money to pay for the paint.

10. Figure out how to get the rest of the money if it costs more than I have. (Borrow from mom and dad? Do extra chores? Wait until after my birthday, when I know I’ll get money from Grandma?)

11. Once I have all the money, go to the store and buy the paint.

12. Take my posters and other decorations off the walls.

13. Move all my furniture to the middle of the room.

14. Cover my furniture with some sheets (no paint splatter!).

15. Lightly sand the walls.

16. Wipe off the walls with a damp sponge.

17. Use painter’s tape along the window frame to protect it from the new paint color.

18. Get some old newspaper and put it on the floor up against the wall.

19. Change into an old T-shirt and my ratty sweats.

20. Make sure I have a damp cloth on hand (to wipe up any spills or splatters).

21. Ask Malika if she wants to come over and help. (?)

22. Put the paint can on some newspaper.

23. Open the can and stir the paint.

24. Pour some paint into the paint tray.

25. Dip the roller in and start painting. (!)

26. When done with the main part of the walls, touch up the edges with the paintbrush.

27. Put the lid on the paint can and wash out the brushes.

28. Clean up all the newspaper.

29. Let paint dry (2 hours!).

30. Take the tape off from around my window frame.

31. Move all my furniture back.

32. Woohoo! Room is painted!!

Now that her list is done, it’s a good idea for Jessica to go back through it and see if any of the smaller tasks still feel big or icky. If they do, they have a good chance of being hang-up spots that might thwart her well-laid plans. If she finds any, the solution is to break them down even more. For example, Jessica’s thirty-first step is “Move all my furniture back.” But if that prospect is overwhelming to her, she could actually break it down into even smaller tasks:

■ Ask my brother if he’ll help me move furniture.

■ Make arrangements for him to help me before he goes to his part-time job.

■ Dust off furniture before moving it back into my awesome new room!

Now, you may think this list is way too detailed, and it’s true, every little thing is broken down into such tiny tasks that many of them could be completed in no time at all and with very little effort. But trust me—getting detailed is worth it. Every time. Why?

Because we are fool-proofing our plan. By detailing each and every task, we shift our mind-set from “overwhelm” to “easy breezy.” And this goes for absolutely every To Do—even biggies like applying to colleges, writing a novel, or organizing the homecoming pep rally. No matter the task, we can simplify it when we eliminate the mystery and chunk it out into little, doable tasks. Then we move forward, one task at a time.

But what about huge dreams, you ask? Does this strategy apply to big, hairy, audacious goals like starting your own global nonprofit or getting a four-year degree in environmental science?

Absolutely.

Again—it’s all about breaking it down. With these huge, long-term dreams, I recommend chunking them down into smaller goals and then treating each of these goals the way you would any other To Do. In my book In Their Shoes, I refer to these smaller goals as supporting goals, because they support the main goal, whatever it may be.

For example, if your goal is to get a four-year degree in environmental science and you’re a sophomore in high school, breaking this goal into mini-tasks would likely create a To Do list so long it would fill a notebook. Plus, you may not even know what all the important steps are yet.

So you can put together a list of supporting goals—things that you know you’ll need to do that you can actually tackle now—and apply the Doable process to each one. In the above example, your supporting goals might include graduating from high school with a transcript that includes the right prerequisites and a solid GPA, identifying and applying to schools with good environmental science programs, and so on.

MIND MAPPING

In the room-painting example, Jessica listed all her mini-tasks, but if you’re not a list girl, no problem. There are other ways to explore the tasks you need to do to reach your goals. My favorite? Mind mapping. A mind map is basically a visual, nonlinear way of brainstorming and organizing information that allows you to capture ideas playfully and creatively. The only rule is that there are no rules. You can create mind maps on paper or on the computer, and if you want to get fancy and fun, you can use different-colored pens or markers, draw doodles, break out the BeDazzler … get as creative as you want. Here’s what a mind map of Jessica’s quest for a blue room might look like:

I’m not exactly sure what it is about mind mapping that works so well—plotting and planning in this way just seems to tap into a part of the brain that results in more creative solutions and outside-the-box thinking.

MAP IT!

Give mind mapping a try the next time you want to break down a big To Do. I have a hunch you’ll be an instant fan. All you have to do is:

1. Flip open your journal to a blank page.

2. Write down the big goal in large letters in the center of the paper.

3. In smaller writing around the big goal, brainstorm the tasks you need to do in order to reach the primary goal. Draw a box around these main tasks and connect each one to your goal with a line.

4. In even smaller writing, brainstorm the tiny tasks you need to take in order to complete each main task. Circle these small tasks and connect each one with a line to the main task it corresponds with.

5. Color, doodle, and embellish as you like!

Getting Specific by Adding Deadlines

Now that you’ve taken the time to write out all the tasks that lead to reaching your goal, you are armed with the information you need to get from dream to reality. Excellent.

But what if you’re up against a hard-and-fast deadline, or you’re one of those people who works better when time factors are at play?

Simple. Go back to your breakdown of tasks and add target dates—dates you either plan to do the task on or dates you hope to accomplish the task by. The important thing here is to always start with the final goal and work your way backward—that way you’ll always be conscious of the drop-dead date. As you plot out your breakdown, it’s important to be super realistic about how long each task might take. If you can, add a little padding to your timeline—if you think something might take you two hours, go ahead and schedule four. This padding prevents you from missing target dates, something that can cause your entire plan to fall apart like a house of cards.

For example, say Tamyra has been struggling with filling out her common application for college. She created a mind map to capture all the big and small tasks she needs to do in order to complete her application. But the final deadline is looming, and because she’s prone to procrastination, Tamyra is appropriately concerned she may put off starting that first task for so long that she’ll run out of time to do a decent job with it. Still, the pressure’s on—she knows a good application is a critical component to gaining acceptance at Skidmore College, her dream school.

To get specific, Tamyra can go back to her mind map and plug in target dates for each and every task. See previous page to see what it looks like when she’s through.

To take it a step further, Tamyra can transfer those target dates to a calendar, whether on her phone, her computer, or even a good ol’ fashioned paper calendar. If she uses an electronic calendar, she can set alarms on the days she has tasks due.

Tamyra decides to transfer her tasks and dates into the day planner she uses for school. Since she already looks at her planner multiple times each day to keep track of homework assignments and upcoming tests, she knows she won’t miss any target dates for her common application. Now she has something that looks like the following page.

By plugging in her target dates, Tamyra has a clear picture of not only the How and the What but also the When for each and every task she needs to complete to cross her big To Do off her list once and for all (and not lose her mind in the process!).

Anna Gallagher, a freshman at the University of Washington and a member of the prestigious Honors Program there, takes Tamyra’s approach one step further. Chuckling, Anna explains, “I like my lists. I have my planner, and I will put important dates in the calendar section, but then I also outline my days, sometimes by the hour.” Yes, that’s right folks … by the hour.

Planning to Plan

When it comes to tackling big To Dos and goals, setting aside time to plan is crucial, but is something many people often skip. These people might believe time spent doing anything other than working on the tasks themselves is time wasted. But that belief couldn’t be less true. What these people don’t realize is that planning and organizing is part of the process of doing anything. In fact, thorough planning can actually speed up the doing part, not to mention make it much less likely that major obstacles will crop up as you put your plan into action. Planning = setting the stage for success.

To make your planning process as simple and fruitful as possible, here are some tips to keep in mind as you apply this strategy to your own goals:

■ Set Aside Time: When you first name something you want to work toward, give yourself at least a half hour of distraction-free, dedicated time to plot it out—more if it’s a big, hairy goal. Time spent planning will almost always save you time down the road.

■ Visualize: Grab a notebook and pen so you’re ready to capture your ideas. Tune out all the noise around you, close your eyes, and imagine yourself actually doing whatever you are trying to do. Visualizing helps you brainstorm possible tasks you may not have thought of otherwise.

■ Do Your Research First: Researching every little thing you need to do benefits you most when you do it at the beginning. Not only do you reduce the possibility of missteps and wasted time, but you can also use what you discover to help you make an informed and organized plan of attack.

■ Understand Who Else Is Involved: Consider whether other people will have to play roles in accomplishing your To Do. For example, if Jessica needs her dad to take her to the hardware store for painting supplies, she’ll want to find out when her dad is available to run that errand. Depending on the goal, some of your tasks may be completely dependent on others’ time, input, and/or action. It’s good to figure out who these people are up front so you can factor them into your plan.

■ Be Realistic: Perhaps there is nothing more demotivating than coming up with a plan, getting started, and then realizing your plan is too ambitious to stick to. If you assign deadlines and target dates to the tasks involved in your plan, make sure each task is actually doable in the amount of time you allot. If you aren’t sure how much time it will take, err on the side of caution and add more. Worst-case scenario, you’ll finish your To Do ahead of schedule.

Like the saying goes, “Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t.” When you take the time to organize, plan, and prepare, you can move ahead knowing what you’re doing, when you want to do it, and how you’ll do it. And just like that, you’ve eliminated guesswork and unnecessary stress throughout your entire Doable journey.

STEP 2 SUMMARY

Acclaimed author and life coach Martha Beck coined the phrase “turtle steps” to refer to the tiny little steps we can take as we move toward any goal. I love this label for the visual reminder it offers and the idea that if we keep moving one small, slow step at a time, we will eventually get where we want to be. When we use this approach, even huge goals, like summiting Mount Kilimanjaro or earning a pilot’s license, can be made achievable without the head-spinning sense of overwhelm that often accompanies big dreams.

Step 1: Define Your To Do

Step 2: Detail the Little Tasks Take the time to break your To Do down into the smallest possible tasks so you have a clear path for getting from start to finish. And not just for the big goals, either—do it for every single thing on your plate. Here are some tips to keep in mind to get the most out of step 2:

■ Chunk your big goal down into small tasks. This is the number-one antidote to pre-goal-pursuing overwhelm. When you can see all the pieces laid out before you, diving in loses its fear factor.

■ Break your small tasks into tiny tasks. Eventually, every action item on your list should be simple, straightforward, and free of the overwhelm ick factor. If a tiny task still feels overwhelming, find ways to break it down even further.

■ Consider using mind maps as tools to brainstorm smaller tasks for your bigger goal. The only rule for this nonlinear way of brainstorming and organizing information is that there are no rules. Mind mapping is a great way to tap into your creative problem-solving juju.

■ Take your breakdown of mini-tasks one step further by setting target dates and deadlines for each item. Start with the final deadline for the completion of your goal and work your way backward, building in padding in case some tasks take longer than you anticipated. Help yourself hit your dates by putting your To Dos and deadlines on your calendar.

■ Take the time to plan, and remember that it’s part of the process of doing anything. To plan effectively: set aside dedicated planning time, visualize what you’re trying to do, do your research up front, get clear on what you need from other people, and make sure your timeline is realistic.