What to do when a task feels too big to start.

I sometimes make tasks too big. I want to do something, but it feels like I need hours to finish it. Hours I never have of course! For example. There is a book I want to read. It’s a coaching method that I want to apply in my practice. The book has 13 chapters. To read the whole book, it will take me a hours. WHEN DO I HAVE THE TIME TO DO THAT?! I want to read this book. But I don’t do it because the task feels too immense. In the meantime, I feel guilty that I don't read it. ‘’Come on, you need to read this for your clients! It will make you a better coach! If you don’t read it, you don’t have enough expertise to be good!’’

I want to read the book. I postpone it. I don’t want that. What is a solution? For me, this works very well. Making tasks so small that I exactly know what to do. It looks like this:

• I create a task: read book X. I put that in Trello.

• Within the task, I make a checklist of small tasks. The questions I ask myself to get to these, are:

• Is every chapter equally important? Or is there a chapter that is more relevant for my coaching? The most relevant chapters are on top of the checklist.

• Are there chapters that are not relevant for now? I will skip them. They are not on my list.

• Can I divide the chapters in sub-chapters? Are there parts of a chapter that I want to skip?

• Then I check: if I have the answers to these questions. How many small tasks are there now? For example, there are 18 sub-chapters that I want to read.

• If I schedule time to read the book, I can just start at the top. Reading a subchapter takes around 20 or 30 minutes in a day. That’s doable, isn’t it?! And ticking that box, men, that feels so good!!

Creating this overview is so worth the time! Because it gives me peace of mind. And the most important part: I stop procrastinating and actually read the book:-)

How can you make tasks smaller? And if you do that, what do you notice? I would love to hear what works for you, let me know in the comments below!