Originally appeared on: https://www.quickanddirtytips.com/qdtarchive/get-a-lot-done-one-step-at-a-time/
December 15, 2014
Do you have lots to do and little time? No problem. Create a workflow where you can do the tasks one step at a time, and you’ll be finished in no time. Get-It-Done Guy explains how.
Completing many low-thought physical tasks at once can be overwhelming!
At Green Growing Things I and II, the holiday season is in full swing. And that means putting holiday price tags on the inventory, moving the Audrey 2s from the holding pens to the front window display, wrapping gifts for the staff, and making sure the Audrey 2s are happy in their new display. It’s a heck of a lot to get done, and it all has to keep moving at once.
Melvin, Bernice, MG, Europa, and Thomas are rushing around like chickens whose feet are tied to a Roomba vacuum cleaner (a metaphor that always made much more sense than this thing about chickens without heads).
I’ve done an episode on speed dating your tasks, where you rapidly cycle through tasks to help break through your procrastinating tendencies. That doesn’t quite fit here. Speed dating is mostly about overcoming procrastination. Here, the gang wants to make steady progress on many different tasks that have many different rhythms. None of the tasks is more important or more urgent, and all need to get done at about the same time.
access to over 2,1000 high-quality online courses – all for one low monthly price. To try it free for 10 days, visit lynda.com/getitdone.
Divide Each Task Into Known Small Steps
Putting holiday tags on the inventory can proceed shelf by shelf. Each shelf can be tagged in one quick, 10-minute session. The way the team set it up, every time a team member walks by a shelf that hasn’t been tagged yet, they pop in and tag one shelf, then continue on their way. Once a shelf has been tagged, we put a cute little removable holiday sticker on the shelf where we can see it. The next person to walk by looks for the sticker and knows which shelf to do next.
In this case, the sticker tells each person where the task has stopped. This works when you have a one-step task that’s repeated on many different objects.
Moving Objects? Do it in Steps
Sometimes, you need to move a physical object through many steps. Audrey 2s are heavy and even Thomas, with his adamantium-augmented frame, can’t carry one the whole way. What we’ve done is cleared out a path from the holding pens to the front window, with little markers about every 15 feet. Every time one of us walks by, if there’s an Audrey 2 in transit, we simply move it 15 more feet towards the window. As we rush around all day, bit by bit, the Audrey 2s end up where they belong.
Now she can do as much wrapping (or as much ribbon tying) as she wants.
This techniques works for moving an object through physical space. You can use this to carry laundry from a basement dryer up to a third floor closet. Fill a basket from the dryer. Each time you go up the stairs and there’s a basket of laundry on the current floor, bring it with you as you go up one flight. Then bring the empty basket back down. Over time, you’ll end up bringing everything upstairs.
I also use this trick when packing for a trip. I put my suitcase in one room and whenever I’m in the apartment near something that will need to go on the trip, I move it one doorway, stair landing, or hallway closer to the suitcase. Over a day or two, everything needed for the trip happily migrates into the suitcase.
Altering Objects? Use Physical Stations
When you’re altering or doing something to objects, consider using physical stations, like an assembly line. By each station, put everything you need to process an item at that station.
Europa has decided to wrap everyone’s holiday present. Fortunately, she loves wrapping presents! There are several steps: cut wrapping paper to the right size with a ruler and scissors, wrap the present and seal it with tape, tie a ribbon around the present, and then add a card.
She lays out separate areas of the room for each step. At the first station, she puts a ruler and scissors. At the next, tape. At the third, ribbon and scissors. And at the fourth, a stack of blank cards, envelopes, and a pen.
She piles packages before the first station. Then she moves the first present into the first station. Now, every time she walks by the room, she pops in and goes up to any present waiting at a station. She quickly performs that station’s task on the gift, and moves it to the next station. The physical location of the items becomes the signal to show what work is left on each one.
Now she can do as much wrapping (or as much ribbon tying) as she wants and she just moves things through as she passes by. Eventually, she’ll have a pile of nicely wrapped presents.
Use a Checklist If You Don’t Have Space
Sometimes you won’t have space to move objects to different locations. In that case, use a paper checklist of all the things that must happen. Melvin’s checklist for making the Audrey 2s happy is: water plant, trim leaves, and sing soothing lullaby. (The lullaby is very important). He puts a copy of the checklist on the pot of each Audrey 2． Each time he walks by a plant, a quick glance at the checklist tells him what to do next. If it’s been watered and trimmed, all that remains is to sing a few lullabies.
When you have a lot to do on many fronts, do everything in steps. Have a way to know what’s been done or what hasn’t. You can label shelves, move things partway towards a destination, move things through different workstations, or use checklists to know what’s next for a given item. Soon, everything will be in motion, but you’ll know the status of each and every item perfectly. When the clockwork comes to rest, your inventory, your gifts, and your man-eating plants will be in tip-top shape.
I’m Stever Robbins. I teach productivity with a great interactive musical workshop. Check out the free trailer at WorkLessAndDoMore.com.
Work Less, Do More, and have a Great Life!
About the Author
Stever Robbins was the host of the Get-it-Done Guy podcast, an iTunes top-10 business podcast, from 2007 to 2020. He is a graduate of W. Edward Deming’s Total Quality Management training program and a Certified Master Trainer Elite of NLP. He holds an MBA from the Harvard Business School and a degree in Computer Science from MIT.
Copyright © 2025 Macmillan Publishing Group, LLC. Quick & Dirty Tips™ and related trademarks appearing on this website are the property of Mignon Fogarty, Inc. and Macmillan Publishing Group, LLC.