THE PRINCIPLE

When you find yourself avoiding tasks, breaking them up into chunks helps overcome your resistance

You may already have run across the strategy of ‘chunking’ tasks down into smaller components to overcome your resistance to doing them. Certainly something daunting like ‘write a book’ becomes more manageable when you convert it into tasks like ‘outline chapter 1 with a mind map’ and ‘write the first three pages of chapter 1’.

For some people even that is not enough, and for those I recommend what I call micro-chunking. That means breaking down the chunks even more, to the point where they may be so small as to seem ridiculous.

For instance, let’s say you have been transferring the task of writing an invoice from one day to another (it’s a mystery why so many of us, including me, resist writing invoices when it means we’ll get paid). Invoicing someone is not a major task, but if you have put it off for several days, it’s a candidate for micro-chunking. Here’s how it might break down:

• Day 1: Make a note of the name and address of the person you’ll be sending the invoice to.
• Day 2: On the same sheet of paper, write down the description of what service or product you supplied and the amount you will be billing.
• Day 3: Fill out the invoice.
• Day 4: Print it out.
• Day 5: Post it.

If that looks a bit ridiculous, that’s the intention. In most cases once you’ve done the first chunk or certainly the first two chunks, you’ll feel silly delaying another day and so you’ll just complete the task. But knowing that you don’t have to, that you can spend literally only a minute or two on each chunk, takes away the resistance.

When any task has been on your to-do list for more than three days, try chunking. If that doesn’t do the trick, switch to micro-chunking.