Making Difficult Tasks Easy
Writing a term paper is difficult. So is designing a thesis, and so is getting a job. Sometimes these tasks seem so difficult it can be hard to know where to start or hard to motivate yourself to do so. Here are four strategies I use to make difficult tasks easy.
Foot in the Door
Imagine a vacuum salesman comes to your house. You haven’t been planning to buy a vacuum and so you want to shut the door on him. However, if he can get his foot in the door – physically or metaphorically – then it will be harder for you to send him away. Therefore, he might ask if you have any carpet stains and offer to remove them for free. At that point, he’ll be in your house and will be able to demonstrate the wonders of his machine. My mom actually bought a (very expensive) vacuum cleaner this way, when I was a little kid. It was a good vacuum, but she wouldn’t have bought it if the salesman hadn’t got his foot in the door.
The same strategy can be used to increase your own motivation. When I was in graduate school, I had to do a lot of studying, even if I wasn’t interested at the time. So I told myself that I would just get the textbook and put it on the table. Surely, I could do that! Initially, I didn’t commit myself to any action beyond getting the textbook. After putting the book on the table, I could go back to making food in the kitchen or whatever else I wanted to do. Next, I told myself that I could open the textbook to the relevant chapter. I wasn’t committing to actually reading any of it, but simply opening the book wouldn’t be too difficult or unpleasant. A few minutes later, I would talk myself into reading one paragraph. It wouldn’t take long. I didn’t commit myself to understanding it or taking notes. And so, finally, after about 10 minutes of trying to get myself to sit down to study, I would finally be reading one paragraph. When I finished that paragraph, I nearly always told myself that I could read another paragraph. And once I did that, reading a bit more was easy. Studying was now surprisingly manageable.
The key to the foot-in-the-door technique is to start with a very small step and not commit yourself to anything else. Then think of the next small step you could do. After taking several small steps, you will get a bit of momentum going and be able to get fully involved in the task at hand.
Break Projects into Subtasks
Sometimes lack of motivation isn’t the only problem. With large projects, you may not even know where to start. For example, today I was trying to re-analyze the data for a paper I’m writing. I needed to find the original data and syntax files, locate an appropriate statistical technique for the new analyses, and find examples of how to do those analyses. Breaking the project into subtasks makes it easier for me to see where to begin and makes the project seem less intimidating.
Often it won’t be clear exactly what the subtasks are. In that case, my first step is to brainstorm a list of subtasks. It’s okay if the list isn’t complete. I’ll fill in more of the steps later on. For now, the goal is to find some part of the project where I can make meaningful progress.
Identify the Next Action
While it’s great to break a project into a complete list of everything that needs to be done, this isn’t always necessary. All projects proceed one step at a time and so the most important step to figure out is the one you need to do next. For example, if I want to study, the first step is to get my books. Once I know what the first step is, it’s easier to take action. Afterwards, it’s easier to figure out the next step, and so on and so on.
When you take a university course, the instructor usually tells you what the next step is at each part of the course: read chapter 3, complete homework 4, write a one-page reflection statement, etc. For your own projects, though, you need to identify the next action yourself. I recommend you identify the next action for each project you are working on – be it personal, educational, or work-related.
Personally, I have found that identifying next actions allows me to stop fretting. In the past, I spent a lot of time worrying, without actually doing anything about the problems. However, I recently discovered that identifying next actions for a problem makes me stop worrying: I know exactly what I need to do next and then I just need to do it. Therefore, I now identify next actions for all my problems and projects.
30-Day Challenge
The easiest tasks, of course, are the routine ones – things we do every day or even several times a day. Brushing our teeth. Driving to work. Checking email. We know the steps involved and can do them without thinking. Therefore, the ultimate way of making tasks easier is to make them routine!
However, creating new routines is hard. Often, we want to do something regularly, to make it a habit or routine, but doing it just once is hard enough as it is. Exercising daily. Avoiding sweets. Spend more time with family and friends. Such routine habits are the substance of most new year’s resolutions. We wish we had better habits than we do, but we aren’t sure how to get there.
Here’s the secret to creating a new habit: Complete a 30-day challenge. Commit yourself to doing this behaviour for 30 days. Tell your friends and family you are going to do it. Post your successes and failures where everyone can see them (e.g., on Facebook or the refrigerator door). At the end of 30 days, tell everyone how you did. Committing yourself publically will give you the motivation you need to get through the first few days (which are always the hardest). Once you’ve succeeded a few times, the task will get easier. The more days you are successful, the easier it will become. Knowing you have promised to tell everyone how you did at the end will keep you motivated on days when you are tired. By the end of 30 days, the task will be substantially less difficult than it was initially and much easier to incorporate into your daily life without necessity of the terror of public shame to keep you going.
Use the 30-day challenge to build routines that will launch you towards success. Meditate daily. Keep a daily gratitude journal. Talk to your parents. Write every day. Work on your most difficult course every day. Identify your goals and the most important things you could do on a daily basis to make those goal happen. Then use 30-day challenges to make those tasks routine.
Conclusion
When a task seems difficult but has to be done, you have two options. First, you can use will power to make yourself do it. The Foot in the Door and 30-Day Challenge help you build your will power, and they also help reduce how much will power you need to accomplish those tasks. Second, you can make the tasks easier so that they don’t require much will power. Breaking a Project into Subtasks and Identifying Next Actions both do this. I recommend you practice all four of these strategies, so that you are able to conquer the challenging educational and career tasks you are dreaming of. Don’t wait until one week before your thesis deadline to learn the organizational and motivational skills you need for such a challenging project. Learn these skills now, on smaller projects, so that you have all the skills you need when faced with opportunities that will transform your life.
Kimberly A. Barchard is an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology at UNLV and is the Director of the Interactive Measurement Group. She works to empower lab members to accomplish their personal and professional goals, particularly through the development of leadership, research, and organizational skills.