In this article, let’s look at the big picture and breaking it down in small tasks.

Start by asking yourself, “What am I trying to achieve?

The last couple of weeks have been great from a productivity point of view for me. One of the big shifts was to deliberately look at the overall aim of what I was trying to do and then break it down into small portions. You can do this in a variety of settings. I looked at a complex organisational system that involved paperwork, registers, forms, data, and multiple people getting access to it at any one time. Without having a clear goal, it is impossible to break a project such as that down. So the aim was to have easy access to the important paperwork of the organisation and get usable data from it, this made the outcome tangible.

At home can also use the idea of a big-picture view of many things in your life. For example, let’s look at the week. This is a big-picture view and could highlight what would you like to achieve over the next couple of days. Having opted for an “achievement approach” * to my weeks lately, I am surprised how many things have been achieved very quickly.

* I talk about different approached to organising in both the Secret to Organising and my book “Organising Room by Room”

At home, you can also look at the big-picture approach for relatively simple tasks. For example; my son loves vacuum cleaning. However, to give him the vacuum cleaner and say; “go for it” would stop him in his tracks, simply because the job is too big. If I approach it differently and ask him what do we need to clean? Which rooms and in which order will be the easiest to clean? We’ll come up with this; the floor needs cleaning, we can start with the entry and work our way to the bedroom, it then becomes a manageable fun task for him (not to mention more pocket money).

This week, think about how you can break your big projects down into manageable flowing steps that help you achieve your goals and watch your organising skills soar to new heights.