Short-Term Deliverables
One of the best ways to procrastinate and deflate real motivation is to create big goals that are interpreted as “long term.” As soon as we set these goals or identify these kinds of projects, we tend to feel smug and self-congratulatory and pseudocomplete about them, just because we’ve committed to them, and our drive to close the loop starts to fizzle. Short-term deliverables about the long-term goals are a critical motivating factor, and real next actions that we can actually do within the next few hours or days galvanize the inspiration.
— David Allen, Ready for Anything
Michael writes:
I think that what David Allen is saying here — that small steps are the way to larger goals — is of vital importance when it comes to working our way out of debt. I can’t stress it enough: Break your long-term tasks down into small, quickly-accomplishable ones, especially if you’re early into a project.
Small victories, more than anything, mean that motivation won’t slip out the back door.