Improving your level of productiveness is not a result that will happen by itself. It will require learning some new skills and more importantly actually implementing them. We will be taking a look at one such skill in this report. The skill of using micro-milestones to get your important tasks completed in a timely fashion.
The implementation of this skill will mean that you have a systematic way to complete important tasks. One of the very real benefits from doing this is that you will have more time for family and friends. You will also feel a very real sense of accomplishment by doing this. On the other hand having this skill will be another way for you to prevent completing important tasks. It also means you can totally avoid feeling that feeling of not finishing something you know you should have.
THE MICRO-MILESTONE STRATEGY
Before we jump head first into this productivity improving strategy let's make sure that we are all on the same page.
Wikipedia defines "Milestone" as
"...a milestone is an event that receives special attention."
This is where the ambiguity can start to come into play as far as this strategy is concerned. What we are looking for here is a marker that exists in the duration of a total task that you will use as a way to split that task up and allow you to complete a portion of it.
When it comes to choosing the marker it should be something that makes sense to you specifically. For example, if we have chosen as a task to write a book then one of the sub-tasks would be to write a chapter in that book. For our purposes we may take this one step further and say our micro-milestone in this case might be 1000 words.
The important thing to realize here is that the micro-milestone should be chosen in a manner so that you don't feel overwhelmed by attempting to complete the entire task in one sitting.
Think of it this way, "How do you eat an elephant?"
The answer is simple.
"One bite at a time!"
In our case the one bite at a time will be the micro-milestones. This will tend to create positive momentum for you and lead to an overall improvement in productivity.
WHY DOES THIS WORK?
The micro-milestone strategy is effective because of three specific principles that work synergistic ally to create a whole that is greater than it's parts.
The first principle is the idea of "Momentum". One of the greatest enemies of productivity is the idea of inertia or non-movement. Most of the time you delay starting on a task because of the perception of either being overwhelmed by it or biting off way more then you can comfortably deal with at the time.
By choosing micro-milestones you will find yourself more pro-active and not in a state of overwhelm. By completing micro-milestone after micro-milestone you Will be creating positive momentum.
The second principle of "Commitment" works on the idea that when we have decided we are going to do something and started on that path then we will tend to stay with it until we come to the logical ending. In this case by committing to complete a micro-milestone you have made it easier to get started because you know the ending isn't a far off unreachable place.
Finally, the last principle that makes micro-milestones works is the idea of "Consistency". All of us are hard-wired to be consistent with the way we see ourselves. This is why it's so difficult not to follow through on something you have committed to finish. Having stated that I would like to make a clarification to what I just wrote. If you were forced to commit to something because of an outside authority then this principle's effect is greatly diminished because you didn't really make the decision yourself.
MICRO-MILESTONE STRATEGY PROCESS STEPS
Step 1. Create a list of tasks you need to complete.
Step 2. Prioritize that list in order of importance.
Step 3. Identify the most important task.
Step 4. Identify and choose an intermediate target related to completing task.
Step 5. Stay with task until target is reached.
COMMON IMPLEMENTATION ISSUES
Based on user feedback we have identified some of the more common stumbling blocks that keep people from implementing this strategy and getting the benefits from using it.
Issue #1 - Not Perfectly Prioritizing Their Initial List
This can happen if you go through the process or steps of prioritizing your list and find a few entries that are too essentially the same priority.
Solution
Let's start off by saying that this is only an issue if this happens at the number one or most important task. Remember we are going to tackle the most important task first by using this strategy. If it does happen that you have more than one task that seems to be the most important then you need to apply a tie-breaker to it.
Tie-Breaker
Which task if finished will have the greater over-all effect on the rest of the remaining tasks?
Which task if finished will provide more momentum for finishing the rest of the tasks?
Which task if finished will have the greatest overall effect on your life, career, relationship and etc.?
Issue #2 - Difficulty Choosing An Intermediate Task
This usually occurs when you have a task that is not readily split into logical parts or micro-milestones.
Solution
When that occurs then we will use a quantitative approach to form a micro-milestone.
What do I mean by this?
If your task does not have logical micro-milestones then we will use time for instance to create a "logical" micro-milestone. So maybe your micro-milestone will be to work at this task for 45 minutes. In this case your micro-milestone will be time based.
You can also create a micro-milestone in this manner by using the "number of" concept. Going back to the writing example you could choose to write for 45 minutes and that would be a micro-milestone. You could also say that your micro-milestone will be completing 5 pages of text.
Issue #3 - Focus On Completing The Entire Task Instead Of The Micro-Milestone
This is like trying to, "eat the whole elephant at once" instead of "bite by bite"
Solution
Keep in mind that you will tend to make smaller commitments faster and easier than larger commitments. Don't sabotage yourself back into a state of overwhelm by trying to tackle a large task without first breaking it up into micro-milestones.
WHAT YOU CAN EXPECT
In this report we have taken a pretty thorough look at a strategy that if implemented can increase your productivity. We looked at some of the WHY reasons behind increasing your productivity, explained the idea of micro-milestones, covered the principles that make this specific strategy work and finally what to do if you encounter three popular stumbling blocks. By allowing yourself to implement consistently the micro-milestone strategy you will find that your productivity levels start to soar. The interesting thing about this is that it starts to become a pervasive affect. The other areas of your life will become productive because as your momentum increases then so does your sense of being a more productive person as well. This means more satisfying personal relationships, more successful business and/or career outcomes and of course a greater sense of accomplishment.
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