Hey Reader

Have you ever been working away at a goal steadily only to suddenly have all progress stop? 👀

This is essentially what has happened with my home organisation goal at the moment.

After doing a full declutter of our house, getting the shower grouting redone, and reorganising the living room, my momentum in this life area seems to have stalled.

I know part of this is because I'm letting wedding prep pull my focus, but part of it is because the next action items are too big.

I know my Rebel Brain™️loves having choice, so I have a few next actions to pick from:

• Fix the walls
• Reorganise my office
• Get the broken rangehood replaced (a new addition to this list, might I add! 🤦‍♀️)
• Reorganise our bedroom
• etc.

But while having options is good, all of them feel really daunting.

I bet you can already guess what the best next course of action is for these, and so do I 😛 Knowing and doing are two different things though, so let's have a closer look!

The idea - Explode your projects

This particular phrasing comes from what is probably my favourite self-help book, Make Time, but it's essentially a much more fun way of saying "break it down".

While most of us logically know we should break things down, this doesn't mean we actually do that.

Sometimes when we "break down" a goal, we actually haven't broken it down enough.

Sometimes we convince ourselves that the next action isn't actually that big, it's just a little big for right now. That's a future-us problem.

A lot of the time though, if an "action step" can't be completed in the next 10 minute or less, it's actually a project in disguise.

When our next goal actions are too big, this is when our progress can stall and we end up getting demotivated. Sometimes to the point of giving up entirely.

Exploding the goal or project is the solution to this, but...how does one even? 👀

How to break down goals and projects

The aim here is to make the next thing we do for our goal:

1. Doable, and
2. Small.

This is why I call the tasks for any goal or project "action steps" 😈 They focus on things I can do, and they're small.

To make a task doable, we want to make sure that it features a verb, or a "doing word".

Writing "clothes" on an actions list doesn't give a lot of context or direction. If we rephrase that to "wash clothes", "sort clothes", or "donate clothes", we better know what we have to do next.

When it comes to making the next task small, my rule of thumb is to consider what I can do in 10 minutes or less.

If the next thing I have to do for my goals is going to take longer than that, it's all too easy for current-me to say "that's a future-me problem" and push the task off indefinitely 😅

I do sometimes give myself a pass for having longer tasks, but aiming for 10 minutes or less safeguards my next actions; I'll be less likely to put them off, and more likely to make progress.

By breaking our goal or project tasks down in this way though, we make it a lot easier to take action.

Not only this, but if we tie those actions to specific dates, we can give ourselves mini-deadlines that can help keep us motivated.

If you wanted more guidance on how to plan your goals so they actually get achieved, this is a topic we have a video on the channel for 😊

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Let's take action

Looking at an goal or project action you've been putting off, ask yourself:

• What about this action step is making me hesitate? Is it clarity, effort, time, or something else?
• Is this something I could do in 10 minutes or less?
• If not, is it actually a group of tasks pretending to be just one?
• What would I do first if I absolutely had to start it today?

You can use your answers to these questions to help identify if the task is too big as it stands, and what action you can take to move you forward.

Remember, it's okay to make your next action step laughably small. What matters more is that you take that action and keep making the progress you're hoping for 😊

Until next time!

- Jess

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