Breaking down a task that's too big

There are always, in a list, two or three lines that don't move. You read them over every day, you don't do them, and eventually you stop even seeing them. Almost always, they're projects written as tasks: "redo the living room", "organise the holiday", "sort out the photos".

The test

A task is something you can do in one go, with what you already have to hand, and that you'd be able to say was finished. If you can't answer "how long does it take?", you're looking at a project.

There's nothing wrong with having projects on your list: what's wrong is treating them as tasks, because a line you can never tick off eventually teaches you to expect nothing from the list.

The question that unblocks it

Just one: what's the first doable thing, in under twenty minutes, without depending on anyone?

For "redo the living room": measure the back wall. For "organise the holiday": choose the two weeks and write them down somewhere. For "sort out the photos": sort June, and June alone. These first steps look ridiculous compared with the project — that's the sign they're good ones.

Don't break everything down

The temptation, once you're going, is to plan absolutely everything: the twelve steps, in order, with dates. That produces a lovely plan and a second kind of paralysis, because you're once again looking at a mountain.

Two or three steps are enough. The rest becomes much clearer once the first one is done — and often, in fact, what comes next doesn't look anything like what you'd planned.

When the first step still doesn't get done

There are usually two causes. It's still too big: break it down again, until it feels almost silly. Or you're missing something — information, a decision that isn't yours to make, a quiet moment. In that case, the real task is to name what's missing: "ask X if they're okay with it", "decide whether we're keeping the table".

An undecided decision looks a lot like procrastination, but it isn't solved the same way: it's solved by setting it down as its own separate line, with a moment set aside to make it.

The special case of tasks that scare you

Some lines don't sit there because they're big, but because they're unpleasant: a call you're dreading, a difficult answer to give, a medical appointment. Breaking it down still helps — "find the number" is neutral, "make the call" isn't — but the hard part often remains.

For those, the only thing that really works is giving them a precise moment in the day, early on, with nothing scheduled right before. The rest is courage, and no list provides that.

Common questions