The Mouse and the Elephant

Have you ever started a large project and felt immediately overwhelmed by the amount of work to do?   Or perhaps there is something you would like to do but are discouraged by the amount of time required to accomplish your goal.   Whatever the project or goal might be, I've come to believe that the biggest obstacle to ultimately achieving such a goal is looking at the task as a single, sustained effort.   There is another way;  as the old saw goes, "How does a mouse eat an elephant?   One bite at a time.".

As humans, we have a finite attention span.   While it varies from person to person, no individual can concentrate on a  large, complex topic indefinitely - we are wired to need change, to need a break, to feel as though we are making progress.    This last piece, especially, is important - it helps to maintain momentum and prevent the loss of motivation. 

Instead of looking at such an undertaking as one big task, think of it as many small ones.   This approach allows one to enjoy many small victories along the way, and provides a relatively constant feeling of accomplishment.      I have used this approach many times in both my personal and professional endeavors - it's not developing a large, complex program but instead building a number of small software components that work together.   It's not earning a college degree or even finishing a number of classes, it's completing the assignments and passing the tests.   It's not building an airplane but instead building many small pieces of an airplane and putting them together.

Following this approach, there is a special bonus - you will be able to look back and see how all those minor successes and victories add up to something big, and it won't have cost any more time than if you had done something else.   Ken Scott, the irrepressible sales representative for Van's Aircraft, tells the story of a man who visited their display at Oshkosh each year for a number of years, each time asking how long it would take to build one of their planes and each time being disappointed at the length of such a project.   After a number of years, Mr. Scott finally pointed out (in his usual blunt manner), that if the man had simply started building when he first asked instead of belly aching about it for all those years, he would have been done by now.

The next time you feel overwhelmed by the magnitude of a project or task put in front of you, take a moment to consider how you could break up the task into more manageable pieces.   

I haven't eaten a whole elephant recently, but the above idea continues to do engage me in my job and my hobbies.   What do you think?