12/10/2023 0 Comments 3 falcon projects tasks![]() In the past, when I’ve been on deadline, I would occasionally hole up at a café (so that being hungry or thirsty was no excuse) and wouldn’t permit myself to leave until I’d finished. You can also create your own “rules” to keep you moving forward. You can even choose to virtually “cowork” with others to stay accountable for your progress on a given day participants announce what they’ll be working on at the outset of a session and report back at the end. Just as hiring a personal trainer quasi-guarantees better exercise compliance (you’ve already paid for the session and it would be rude to stand them up at the gym), you can set up accountability mechanisms for yourself, like scheduling a weekly check-in with your manager or a trusted colleague. Instead, build in “ forcing functions” for yourself to ensure your compliance. If you’ve been procrastinating, it’s probably clear that willpower alone won’t suffice to motivate you (“ I’ll definitely make it happen this Thursday”). Identifying a task you can accomplish, even if it’s not the most strategic (such as sending an email or fixing the layout on a presentation deck), may disrupt your inertia and make it feel easier to return to the task in the future. But as Stanford professor BJ Fogg has noted, taking even a tiny action creates positive momentum that makes it easier to complete the full task (just as flossing one tooth makes you realize it’s not much more effort to floss your entire mouth, writing one paragraph of a progress report can propel you along into finishing it). Take (small) action.Īmbiguous projects - because they’re unclear - often feel enormous, so it makes sense they often get pushed to the back of the line. You don’t have to mirror their moves exactly - your innovations may turn out to improve on the norm - but being aware of past best (and worst) practices can help you develop an initial plan and make conscious choices about where you’d like to deviate. If that’s not an option, you might consider hiring a consultant with relevant expertise or carefully studying and reverse-engineering what others in your field have done in the past. In those situations, it’s useful to speak with colleagues who have done something similar in the past. ( Conduct focus groups? Develop a prototype? Create a marketing plan? Test a pricing strategy?) Especially if you’re tackling something you’ve never done before (such as launching a new product), you may have a to-do list brimming with possible activities, but feel uncertain which are the most critical, or in what order to pursue them. Identify concrete steps.Įven when you’re clear on the vision - or if you’re pursuing your own - it may not be self-evident how to get to your desired destination. What, precisely, are you being asked to do? What is the desired output, and how long do you estimate it will take? Clarifying the intention can often help get us unstuck. Do they want a 20-page deep dive or a one-page summary? An analysis you can present to the board or your quick take? In the midst of our “freeze response,” we may not even realize we’re unclear on the scope, so it’s important to go back to first principles. Get clear on the vision.Įspecially if a particular project has been handed to you by a manager or colleague - “write this grant proposal” or “research this opportunity” - it may be unclear what they’re actually looking for. If you find yourself repeatedly ignoring a particular line item on your to-do list, even when it may be critical for your future success, here are five things you can do. We become overwhelmed because we just aren’t sure what to do or where to start, leading to “ task paralysis.” As I discuss in my book The Long Game, that can derail our efforts to make progress on long-term goals, even while we fill our time with what we recognize as comparatively trivial matters. One of the most common reasons we procrastinate is that certain projects may feel ambiguous or amorphous. Indeed, research has shown that procrastination - rather than being a moral failing or sign of laziness - is actually a subconscious strategy to avoid negative emotions. It’s easy to put off tedious tasks, like filing expense reports, or emotionally draining ones, like writing up a negative employee performance review. Every professional occasionally drags their feet on certain projects.
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