Speaker 1: Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Good Morning.
Speaker 1: This is Laura, Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast. This
Speaker 1: is the second episode in my five part series on procrastination.
Speaker 1: Today's tip is to conquer a task you've been resisting
Speaker 1: by breaking it into very small steps.
Speaker 2: There's been a lot written about success over.
Speaker 1: The years, but I think one of the most profound
Speaker 1: insights is this small things done repeatedly truly do add up.
Speaker 1: As the poet Avid once put it, dripping water hollows stone.
Speaker 1: Later writers added their addendum to this quote, not by force,
Speaker 1: but by persistence. If you think about it, the Grand
Speaker 1: Canyon is the result of a river subtracting just a
Speaker 1: little bit from the hills at a time. Lots of
Speaker 1: little steps can yield big results. Say you want to
Speaker 1: write a book, well, write five hundred words a day,
Speaker 1: four days a week. Five hundred words isn't much of anything.
Speaker 1: The script for this episode is longer than five hundred words,
Speaker 1: But two thousand words a week gives you fifty thousand
Speaker 1: words in six months. You'll get seventy five thousand words
Speaker 1: in nine months. I write books for a living, and
Speaker 1: I don't come anywhere near that level of output. Learning
Speaker 1: a language seems like a huge undertaking, but it's not
Speaker 1: an endless undertaking. According to the Foreign Service Institute, an
Speaker 1: English speaker could reach general proficiency with a language such
Speaker 1: as Spanish, French, or Italian in about six hundred hours
Speaker 1: over two years. That's less than an hour a day.
Speaker 1: Working with a language app during your commute and then
Speaker 1: meeting a native speaker for lunch once every other week
Speaker 1: could get you there. This insight is important for procrastination
Speaker 1: because often when we resist a task, it's because it
Speaker 1: seems big and nebulous, or possibly scary. This insight is
Speaker 1: important for procrastination because often when we resist a task,
Speaker 1: it's because it seems big and nebulous, or possibly scary.
Speaker 1: Get a new job, go back to school, start a business,
Speaker 1: start a nonprofit, meet someone special. All of this might
Speaker 1: be amazing, but life's pretty busy right now, all about
Speaker 1: next year or the next decade. One way to conquer
Speaker 1: this resistance is to break the task down into tiny,
Speaker 1: doable steps. Let's say you're procrastinating writing a report. Break
Speaker 1: this down into tasks so small that you feel no
Speaker 1: resistance to them, like write the title.
Speaker 2: Okay, that's not so hard.
Speaker 1: I mean, who's bent out of shape by typing the title.
Speaker 1: Then maybe another step is writing down the main point.
Speaker 1: You want to make one sentence, what is this report about?
Speaker 1: Hopefully you know, because that's how you're describing it to people.
Speaker 1: So you write that one sentence down, just one sentence
Speaker 1: that wasn't bad at all. Then maybe another step is
Speaker 1: including three data points you know are important.
Speaker 2: Okay, we'll get those in there.
Speaker 1: Oh and then here's something interesting we could say to
Speaker 1: connect the main point in those data points. Oh and
Speaker 1: by the way, I know, this is how I want
Speaker 1: to sum up and explain those data points. And next thing,
Speaker 1: you know, the momentum is there and the report is
Speaker 1: pretty much written. And here's the crazy thing. If you
Speaker 1: start early enough, you don't even have to do all
Speaker 1: of this on the same day. It never has to
Speaker 1: be unpleasant, and you never have to feel like there's
Speaker 1: too much to do because all these steps are small
Speaker 1: enough that you just don't feel like it's a big deal.
Speaker 1: If you do feel like it's a big deal and
Speaker 1: you start feeling that resistance, back up and make the
Speaker 1: step smaller. But I promise that progress is inherently motivational.
Speaker 1: We overestimate what we can do in the short run,
Speaker 1: but we underestimate what we can do in the long run.
Speaker 1: Even a nebulous project like meeting someone special could be
Speaker 1: done in small steps. You aim to go on one
Speaker 1: first date a week. That's not so bad. I mean,
Speaker 1: just one coffee date. It's not too much of an
Speaker 1: investment of time. But for every four first dates you
Speaker 1: might meet someone you want to go on a second
Speaker 1: date with, maybe one out of every three second dates
Speaker 1: turns into a third date. In a year, you would
Speaker 1: have met four people you were willing to go on
Speaker 1: three dates. With the odds that one of those turns
Speaker 1: into something bigger is pretty good. So today, think about
Speaker 1: some task that you've been putting off. Think about how
Speaker 1: you could break it up into tiny steps. Think about
Speaker 1: making those steps so small that they're really just a
Speaker 1: little better than nothing. If writing five hundred words a
Speaker 1: day is too much, right two hundred. I bet you've
Speaker 1: sent two hundred words of emails by eight thirty am.
Speaker 1: But almost nothing isn't actually nothing, and a little bit
Speaker 1: of something, done over and over again can move mountains
Speaker 1: over the long haul. What big project have you broken
Speaker 1: into tiny steps? I'd love to hear about it. You
Speaker 1: can email me at Before Breakfast podcast at iHeartMedia dot com.
Speaker 1: In the meantime, this is Laura. Thanks for listening and
Speaker 1: here's to making the most of our time. Hey, everybody,
Speaker 1: I'd love to hear from you. You can send me
Speaker 1: your tips, your questions, or anything else. Just connect with
Speaker 1: me on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram at Before Breakfast Pod.
Speaker 1: That's b E the number four then Breakfast pod. You
Speaker 1: can also shoot me an email at Before Breakfast podcast
Speaker 1: at iHeartMedia dot com. That Before Breakfast is spelled out
Speaker 1: with all the letters.
Speaker 2: Thanks so much.
Speaker 1: Should I look forward to staying in touch. Before Breakfast
Speaker 1: is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
Speaker 1: visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
Speaker 1: to your favorite shows.