6 Steps to Mapping Your Tasks

We all know that the secret to realizing our goals is to look ahead, set a date for accomplishing the goals, and then to break the goals down into bite-sized pieces that we can accomplish daily or weekly. It sounds easy enough in theory, but many of us struggle to achieve it in reality.

A lot of our goals look the same today as they did three years ago. “Get a handle on our clutter. Visit Europe. Create a retirement plan. Read more. Develop an exercise routine. Save money.” If it’s as easy to break our goals into manageable pieces as all the literature makes it sound, why are so many of us still planning to reach our goals during that mythical Someday?

The truth is, the process of determining our goals requires personal insight. That takes time, thoughtful consideration and quiet pondering. Yet, most of us are so busy that we can’t or don’t find the time for this critical exercise. Plus, once we have our goals in mind, breaking them into steps is another skillset that we haven’t been taught or rarely practice. So even if we can name the things we hope to achieve someday, it doesn’t mean we’ll realize those dreams without some real help.

That help comes through the process of task mapping. How often do we panic when we receive an assignment? Big projects can have more than one possible starting point, and there are usually several steps along the way that will require careful planning. It’s easy to feel overwhelmed. Mapping our tasks makes our big projects much easier to complete.

1. Focus on the Finish

We’ve always championed the idea of beginning your tasks with the end in mind. In order to map your tasks in a manner that ensures your success, you need to take that advice literally. Start mapping your task from finish to start, rather than from start to finish. If you have a goal to develop a fitness plan, imagine what that plan looks like, when it will take place each day, and how you will feel when you are following a healthy routine. It’s important to think through all the details because each of those details will require time to develop.

It’s no different than cooking the Thanksgiving turkey. You need to know how that turkey is going to look, smell, and taste before you ever purchase the bird from your grocery store. You need to know what seasonings to buy, how long it will take to thaw, how long it will take to cook, and what garnishes will pair best with it before you can begin.

2. Develop a Time Line

Success is purchased with the coin of time and effort. Everything we do takes time, so we need to consider how long it will take to complete our goals. If you have a long-term goal to visit Europe, you’ll need to determine where you want to go, how long you’d like to stay, how long it will take to save the money for the trip, what you need to do to secure your home and belongings while you’re away, what to do with your mail delivery, and who will watch your pets.

How long you stay will determine the cost of your trip. How well you save your money will determine how soon you can leave. So take the time to consider each element of your trip and create a realistic timeline for accomplishing each part.

3. Find the Natural Breaks in Your Task

The next step is to break your project into big pieces. As you think through your project, you’ll notice natural dividing lines. Every goal is actually a combination of several steps. Whenever a change in function occurs during your process, note those changes as separate chunks of your project. Think of these chunks as mid-range goals—items that will take time to develop and work through.

If you want to visit Europe, you’ll first need to plan the events of the trip. That portion of your goal will include researching venues to visit, determining your means of travel, deciding how long you’d like to stay in each area, and so forth. It’s necessary that you decide all of these details before you determine how much money you’ll need to save and how long it will take to acquire those funds, right? So there is a natural dividing line between those two aspects of your goal.

Finding the natural breaks in your project will help simplify your planning process. You’ll be able to compartmentalize each aspect of your goal without letting other parts of the process creep in and clutter your efforts. One great way to visualize this stage of your plan is to write each chunk on separate pieces of paper and place them on your timeline.

4. Arrange Each Item in Sequential Order

The fourth step is to arrange each big item into a sequential order. If you find that two or more items need to happen at the same time, just place them in the same spot on your timeline. Life events don’t always happen linearly, so you’ll simply need to schedule events concurrently as you plan.

5. Establish Your Short-term Goals

Now is the time to reduce. Repeat steps 3 and 4 with each existing chunk. Prepare a list of all the tasks that need to be accomplished within each large chunk. These tasks are your short-term goals—hopefully things than can happen in a week or less. It may be easier to visualize this process if you write each step on separate small pieces of paper and arrange them in order, so you can see how each task affects the rest.

Consider the relationships between the tasks. Who should accomplish each task? Are the tasks sequential, or will any need to happen at the same time? Look at the longest timeline that you’ve allocated to a task—if you have a deadline, will you be able to fit it all in?

6. Layout Your Entire Project From Finish to Start

Lay out every big chunk in sequential order from the end to the beginning and place the small chunks in sequential order inside each large chunk. Because you started from the end, all the pieces of your task map are in reverse order, but the advantage is that you know they’ll work toward your desired end. Now simply reverse your task map and place it in its final form, and you’ll have an ideal plan that you can follow from start to finish.

Once you’ve decided on a path to follow toward your goal, write each step in your planner and spread the tasks throughout the weeks and months as you’ve determined will work best. As you work through the tasks that will move you toward your goal, you may find that you need to make adjustments. If so, simply note the changes in your planner and keep moving forward.

Plan for change along the way. Keep a running list of the things you’re working toward in your planner and move them from day to day until they’re completed. You may also want to keep a visual reminder somewhere in your home. Keep each chunk and step on separate papers on a white board or in an electronic file on your computer and rearrange tasks as you go to accommodate the inevitable hiccups.

We know that this sounds simpler than it really is, but as you practice this process, it will become easier. Before long, many of the things you thought were distant dreams will begin to become your reality. Why not dream big—starting now?