Tonight we watched The Martian in the cinema and there is one scene where Matt Damon talks about that all you have to do is tackle one problem at the time. Once you’ve fixed one, you can fix the next and so on.
Most of us know this in principle but struggle to implement it in life. From being overwhelmed by the amount of things that are on our to do list at work, to all the things we need to do and fix at home, not forgetting everything else we want and feel like we should do outside of work and those chores.
Yesterday I wrote about the importance of doing what you say you’re going to do and feeling like you have progress in your life rather than a growing list of things that you are behind on. Whether it’s dealing with chores around the house, things to do at work or to get your startup off the ground, when you break it down, it really is a simple as tackling one thing at the time. Little by little you’re working through more than you think and by doing that, not only means you make progress, you also get that rewarding feeling of accomplishing something and doing what you’ve said you’re going to do.
The ‘My 3 most important tasks today are…” approach that we’re taking in our morning catch ups is to both help making sure that we are aware of what’s most important to do, but also to set realistic goals for each day. Most of the time we’ll have more than 3 things to do in a day, but if we at least do our 3 most important tasks, then we’ve made sure we’ve succeeded on them and also ensured that we’ve taken the right actions that day bring Glimt.it forward.
That big long list of everything that has to be accomplished in a day, week, month or year, can feel daunting and overwhelming. Learning how to focus and take things one step at the time, even if you’re juggling multiple things and keeping an overview of where it fits in in the bigger picture, is one of the most important tasks to learn. Both for work and life outside of work.
Image via Flickr user Anant Nath Sharma
