Over the summer, I handwrote 5400 postcards that will be mailed in October to encourage voting. This wasn’t the type of task you could do in an evening, a weekend, or even a week. It took me about 200 hours over three months to write them all.
Three things helped me to accomplish this task:
- The names were provided on sheets with 25 names, requiring about an hour to write. It broke the task into manageable pieces and allowed me an instantaneous tally of how far along I was in the project.
- I knew I wanted them finished by Labor Day, so it was easy to determine how many pages I needed to write each day. I had clear benchmarks as to whether or not I was on track and could make adjustments accordingly.
- I created a system where (on most days) I wrote for an hour in the morning and another in the evening, making writing a part of my daily routine. It wasn’t left to happenstance when/whether I would write.
I’m now engaged in another large project and I bring these lessons forward to help me accomplish it. It’s much more nebulous than the postcards, and I have to do the equivalent of creating the names rather than being handed them, but I know I need to create measurable targets, a benchmark, and a system.
Instead of instantly jumping into your next assignment, take a moment to consider the strategies above. Having a game plan may be just what you need to win the game.
