Mind Management Angela May

Climbing a Mountain of Work – part 2/2

This is the second half of a series of tips for making headway on a BIG HUGE SCARY PROJECT. Check out part 1 for more great tips and a rundown of what the heck BIG HUGE PROJECT is anyway!

Take all your problems and break them apart

Be like the squirrel, girl, be like the squirrel

If you're climbing a mountain of constant, similar tasks, find a way to divide it into chunks. If it's a novel, break it into sections, chapters, or 500-word chunks. Write it all out in one big list:

Chatper 1
- 500-word chunk #1
- 500-word chunk #2
- 500-word chunk #3 ... etc. You  might mis-estimate. no big deal.
Chapter 2
...

CROSS IT OFF WITH SATISFACTION WHENEVER YOU FINISH A NEW CHUNK.

The key is having a VISIBLE way to see your progress. It motivates you. BIG HUGE PROJECTS are often so big they fall out of our field of vision. That makes the goal always feel soooo farrr offff.

When I had to draw in 200 artist editions of my book, I divided it all into 15 book chunks (10 was too easy, 20 too scary). I set up the little piles on my table, and brought them 15 at a time to my nest. When I finished 15 books, I wrapped them up for shipping then got the next batch. What was an invisible, impossibly massive task before now had a visible progress bar and that was enough to keep me motivated. I met what seemed like an impossible goal!

Make it Public

The great thing about having a blog or a webcomic is- compared to a book that you write by yourself in isolation-you can publicly show when you've finished a chunk and get feedback. It's AMAZINGLY motivating!! Once you've chunked your work out, find a group that cares, and a way to announce it.

Even if you don't want to show the world your rough drafts, sometimes it helps just to update your status: "finished 3 500-word chunks today! Onward to chapter 4! ". A few "likes" reinforce that good feeling make it easier to repeat the feat tomorrow.

Dance Break

Sitting and concentrating for hours can get exhausting. I like to find a really upbeat song, play it really loud and DANCE VIGOROUSLY.  It's a good way to break up the day.

Silence

Most people like to work with some kind of noise: a movie, a podcast, some music. If you're finding the music still too stimulating, try working in complete silence for awhile.

Make it a Party

Working on BIG HUGE PROJECT can be quite lonely. Especially if you're doing it day in and day out. Even introverts get lonely sometimes! It's nice to have a group of friends to call who ALSO have BIG HUGE PROJECTS of their own.

Of course there's a balance to be struck here. Make sure you all understand that you want to have a WORK party, where primarily you will be sitting in silence and working. You're basically just there to have the presence of another human and to keep each other from losing the day to time traps. Different people have different thresholds, sometimes one person will be too chatty, another will have too low a tolerance for any kind of talking at all! Experiment: if it makes you MORE productive with a partner, keep it. If not, ditch it.

Batch Processes

Say you need to sew 20 toy rabbits. They all have the same steps: first you sew the body, then you sew the ears on, then you sew the eyes, then the details... Instead of working on them one at a time, start-to-finish, try working on two or three at a time.  First you sew 3 bodies, then you sew the 3 pairs of ears on...  Batching processes like these can help prevent the "between chunk" downtime. We finish one chunk and then AUGFghgg... we go get a cup of tea. And then hey, I wonder what's on facebook...

"Rule your board" as soon as you finish

Similar to batch processing, I found this helped me a lot to reduce between-chunk downtime: once you finish a chunk, instead of IMMEDIATELY going on your break, FIRST do the VERY FIRST STEP of the next chunk.  In the case of comics, my first step was "ruling the board".  This is where you measure out and draw all your guidelines. It's very simple, and takes no creativity, but even the simplest first step helped to prevent the 'empty page fear' and it was easier to get back into my groove after the break.

Channeling Inspiration Away

Inspiration ALWAYS seems to strike when you sit down to do BIG HUGE PROJECT doesn't it? I mean... inspiration for anything BUT your BIG HUGE PROJECT! It's distracting, and infuriating. The first line of defense is to write it down. OH! I have a great idea for a new story! WRITE IT DOWN. As fast as you can, just enough so that you can remember what you meant later, and GET BACK TO WORK. If it's still bugging you an hour after that and it's DRIVING YOU CRAZY, take an "inspiration break".

SET YOUR TIMER for one hour. (Again, you don't want to lose TOO much time to this - inspiration distraction is a CLASSIC lizard brain tactic.) Use the hour to burn yourself out on the inspiration. Whatever it is you were desperate to do. Wanted to paint? Cool. Paint something. For an hour--- then get back to work.

BIG HUGE PROJECT is usually the project that is closest to your heart, which is why it's the scariest to work on. Your lizard brain desperately wants to do ANYTHING IT CAN to keep you from working on it because it's afraid of failure. Or success. Know thy enemy, and use these tips to get back on track.

Hope it helps!