A task list is a great way to see what is planned to be done in a day. At the same time it’s a terrible place to see high-level picture. When we’re working towards our goals we need tasks. But it is not tasks what defines our success in this journey.
A task is atomic. It’s just too small compared to the goal. Therefore putting a list of tasks for the goal creates a long and scary list. Moreover when you look at this list oftentimes it’s hard to see the path and it’s hard to pivot as well.
Let’s say you’re in a multi-day road trip. For each day you define your destination town and some important crossroads on your way. Between those you basically have a number of straights and turns. Tasks are equivalent of those straights and turns. Yes, you need to make those straights and turns (tasks), but when you think about your road trip you think in terms of important destinations (milestones). If you miss that important crossroad where you were supposed to switch from one highway to another, you immediately step up from straights and turns to milestones. You asses how to get your next milestone using different roads or you may even skip next milestone and take absolutely different path to one of the further milestones.
Another aspect of road trip is the system you have in place to follow your route. Nowadays most likely it’s an app in smartphone. You give it your desired destinations (milestones) and it gives you instructions where to drive straight and where to turn (tasks). As long as you can trust your system, your journey goes smooth and easy. Imagine for a second that your navigation app starts crashing every half an hour or you’re out of cell network coverage while the app needs being online to navigate you. You’re in big trouble now. Suddenly you need to double check your next move. It’s highly possible that you won’t arrive at your destination on time or even get lost.
In your journey to achieve your goals, tasks play an important role as actions, but you should pay more attention to:
- Milestones. In other words projects. Projects by their nature have a scope and a timeline. Keep them small enough to navigate through the project tasks with a breeze. When you see a project with internal milestones, this a sign of too large project. Build up your route to the goal with projects.
- Your system. Pick or a define a system that works for you. In my system I differentiate between goals, projects and tasks a lot. I even use one software to deal with goals and project, and another one for the tasks. I believe that the difference in their nature and influence on my journey is so big between goals/project and tasks, that they require absolutely different approaches.
When you have these two in place, you will have a basis for your route. Then can clearly see the path (and pivot if needed). And tasks will support you in this journey.