When you plan to execute a large project or campaign it is very easy to become overwhelmed. Overwhelm leads to procrastination (see last month’s blogs on procrastination) and so nothing happens. When you find this happening to you it is time to call in a modest little management tool called One Step At A Time. This tool causes you to break the project into smaller bite size chunks. Here is an example.
Our client wanted to communicate with her past colleagues and contacts to let them know that she was now a business owner and would appreciate any referrals (“friends in your corner”letter). She was putting this off until she had all their current emails; a formidable task to say the least. And so we changed the strategy to One Step At A Time. We set a target of finding five emails a week and sending those five the announcement. Next week another five …. and so on and so on. An overwhelming project had become manageable. And more important it got done!
So next time you find yourself overwhelmed by the enormity of a project take a deep breath and say to yourself: “One Step At A Time.”
And remember what the old Chinese proverb taught us: “A journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step.”
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