Recently, I found myself in a rut while working on a side project — a tool I built for myself for setting, tracking, and measuring my personal development goals. At first, I was highly motivated and delved into various sources of documentation, including books, blogs, and videos. I made significant progress and stayed committed to the project for a while, despite occasional fluctuations in motivation. However, there came a point where my creativity seemed to fade away, and I couldn’t seem to produce anything substantial. I was on the verge of giving up until I experienced a small win that reignited my motivation. This led me to ponder whether the same elements that initially sparked my enthusiasm could be instrumental in regaining momentum. After doing some journaling on the topic, I came to some insights that helped me remain motivated in bigger projects, both personally and professionally. Here’s what I’ve learned:
- The aversion of our mind towards ambiguity.
- The importance of breaking down work into smaller chunks.
- The value of seeking external inspiration to overcome roadblocks.
Our Mind’s Aversion to Ambiguity
As Chip and Dan Heath wrote in their book Switch: Whether you’re undertaking a large project, trying to change a habit, or mobilizing an entire organization, our minds dislike ambiguity. When a task isn’t clear, it requires a significant amount of effort to understand what is expected of us. This wasted effort and energy prevents progress. However, by making the task crystal clear and visualizing every step, I eliminate any mental barriers. For example, when needing to write a job description for a new role within my company, I would previously create a task to ‘write job description’ and pick it up. However, by breaking the task down into ‘find 3 job descriptions online for role x’, ‘create bullet point list for key responsibilities’, and ‘write the first draft of the job description based on existing template’ I’ve created tasks that are crystal clear to pick and don’t require much additional headspace.
Breaking Down Work into Smaller Chunks
Once I’ve created a list of clear tasks and goals, it’s time to break it down into smaller, more manageable chunks. This approach offers several benefits. Firstly, completing each smaller chunk provides me with a sense of fulfilment, a satisfying moment that motivates progress. I don’t know about you, but I love the feeling of ticking off tasks on my to-do lists. Secondly, breaking down the work into smaller pieces allows for deployable components. This concept comes from agile software development, where the premise is that each user story should be able to be released to production. Similarly, when working on my own projects, having tasks that are small and have clear deliverables, helps me to see progress and know where I am in the project.
For instance, I recently had to create a presentation for work. Instead of starting from the first slide and moving forward (with a fair chance that it would take multiple days), I broke down the work into deliverable chunks. I began by brainstorming and creating action titles (such as Storytelling with Data by Cole Knaflic for more details on those), then validated them with my boss, developed an outline of the slides, and finally, added the content. This approach ensured that the content remained aligned and it broke down the work into manageable chunks.
Seeking External Inspiration
However, at times, I still struggle to determine the next step, even after breaking down the work. This is when I reach for external inspiration to get me going. It can be anything: books, blogs, videos, podcasts, or any content relevant to my project. Or not relevant for that case. Most important is, that while I consume the content, I actively consider how it can be applied to some of my projects. I try to play around with it in my mind.
“Presented with new information, the brain creates new connections and is revitalized”
Ikigai — Hector Garcia Puigcerver & Francesc Miralles
Coming back to the project about goal setting, I might listen to a podcast about goal setting, watch a video about an interesting software design principle that I can apply or simply think about what things are currently preventing me from achieving my goals and how a tool could help with that.
Conclusion
So when I feel stuck or in a rut and I’m unsure how to proceed, I try to sit down, eliminate anything that costs me any mental brainpower, break the work down into smaller chunks, and seek external inspiration if needed. Using these strategies has helped me get back on track with my side project and gave me some new energy and motivating to get going again and hope they help you as well. All the best in your future endeavours!