Steve Pavlina reminds us how to approach big and small tasks in his posts about breaking problems down into microtasks.
 
Although a popular approach to tackling a goal is to write down the next 3 small steps you can take to accomplish it, often this is not enough to motivate us to complete the job. Writing out all of the small tasks that you need to do to get the job done will help to make each step seem manageable and clearly define the endpoint.
 
This is an example list of microtasks that I have just completed to improve a program that graphs some data:

• add legend
• fix axes labels
• add titles
• change colour scheme for lower graphs
• comment code
• check output graph (see if program is working properly)
• make needed changes
• regraph old data

This list is not perfect and may not make complete sense without proper context, but there are only a couple of really important points to remember.

1. Each step should seem quite manageable and easy to do in a short period of time (Steve mentions 10 minutes).
2. The list should also help you to see the end clearly.

Seeing the end clearly is important in that it reveals what you are working towards and ensures that you don’t continue to work endlessly when all your required tasks are complete.
 

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