Divide and Conquer—A Helpful Strategy For Getting Stuff Done

The weeds were taking over my flower beds. I tried glaring at them, but they didn’t shrivel up and go away. I tried ignoring them, but they kept growing until I could see nothing else. The guilt kept growing too.

And yet, day after day I put it off. Because the job was too big. I didn’t have the time, the energy, or the motivation to deal with those weeds.

Then I realized I didn’t have to fix the problem all at once. So I made myself a deal:

Every day when I went to the mailbox, I would stop and pull the weeds from one little patch of flowerbed. Some days I just pulled a few. Others I spent five or ten minutes and cleared a larger patch. I even gave it half-an-hour or so on Saturday.

The result?

My flower beds are no longer a weed-choked embarrassment.

An intentional quitter

I conquered the project, because I gave myself permission to quit before the project was finished.

[Do I hear a gasp from some of you?]

Many of us have been taught that a responsible person doesn’t quit until the job is finished. That is a good rule of thumb, but like any such rule it does not apply equally to all situations.

In the case of my flower beds, Divide and Conquer was a better strategy. I divided the job into manageable chunks that I could easily conquer.

And it worked.

Because small steps, taken consistently, yield results.

Keys to making the Divide and Conquer strategy work for you:

• Choose a task that lends itself to a stop-and-start strategy, such as weeding or cleaning.
• Give yourself permission to do only a tiny portion of the whole job. The idea is to divide the task into small enough pieces that it fits into your busy day without a problem.
• Keep the right mindset. Reframe your work as positive progress. Think, “I made progress again today. That’s four days in a row!” instead of “I only pulled five measly handfuls of weeds. What a loser.”
• Be consistent. This strategy only works if you keep at it until the whole task is completed.
• Forgive lapses. Life happens. Get back up and try again tomorrow. In the case of the flower beds, I didn’t bother with weeds if it was raining all day.
• Link it to a regular activity for best results. I used the trip to the mailbox as a trigger to do some weeding because I walk past the main flower beds on the way to the mailbox. I am an out-of-sight-out-of-mind person, so unless I see something to remind me, I won’t remember to do it. Stopping to pull a few weeds before grabbing the mail was simple, quick, and yielded instant results. On top of that, as the weeds disappeared my motivation to finish grew.

Now that I’ve beaten back the weeds, I’m starting a new Divide and Conquer project: washing windows. Check back later so see how I’m doing.

Do you have a job you’ve been avoiding because it’s too big to tackle? Can it be divided into bite-sized chunks that you can easily fit into your busy day? Why not give Divide and Conquer a try?