How Planning Tomorrow's One Small Task Today Unlocks Big Projects

We have a few “dream big” ideas in our todo list. The ones we get easily excited about, the ones that will make a huge impact. These are sometimes called our big rocks, in a superb analogy popularized by Stephen R. Covey.

These rocks are long-term residents at the top of our todo list, and we have trouble making progress.

Why big rocks stall

Getting them going requires lots of thought and energy — working through the ambiguity, gathering supporting data, writing an effective proposal for a wide audience. There’s natural resistance to getting started. Might as well shift focus to the hundreds of other items screaming for our attention.

Recognize this pattern? I feel like I invented this pattern.

Two keys to making progress

Do one small thing each day.
Plan it one day in advance.

Break the big daunting rock into stones, then break each stone into pebbles — then do those pebbles (er, small tasks) one at a time. But here’s the crucial part: add that task to tomorrow’s todo list, not today’s.

Why “one day ahead” is the magic

When we identify the next task and schedule it for tomorrow, four things happen:

Our brain cranks on it before we sit down. Sleep, shower, exercise, commute — our SSEC time. We’re going to have the task all worked out before we even start. Ambiguity be gone.
We’ll actually do it. That one task is just another easy thing to knock out on our todo list.
Flow happens. While completing that task, we get into a flow state and do the next ten tasks in the same session. We won’t plan it, we’ll just do it.
Our brain stays creative. Because we’re now thinking about pieces of this big rock every day, our brain proposes a thousand other related tasks and ideas — and that brainstorming happens during SSEC time when we’re not even “working.”