Break It Down

Break It Down

No one can tackle a large project all at one time. To succeed you need to break a project down into small bits. It’s the answer to the “how do you eat an elephant?” question. One bite at a time!

Let me give you an example . . .Years ago when my children were young, I made it a priority to sit down as a family for a healthy dinner at this table every night. There is a lot of research out there that says a family that eats dinner together has better communication than those who do not. That was my goal.

In order to accomplish my goal I broke it down into three tasks. I needed to:

1. Have healthy dinners planned ahead of time.
2. Shop for the ingredients to make those healthy dinners.
3. Allow enough time to prepare those meals.

In order to plan the family meals, I spent an hour or so, once a week making decisions on what to serve and then filling out a shopping list. By having a grocery list, I found that I could get in and out of the store more quickly and with everything I needed – an extra benefit to being more organized. The final step to accomplishing my goal was to schedule a time to prepare my family’s meals. Because I had planned what I was going to make, I could schedule how much time the cooking would take.

My plan didn’t always work. I lived through my share of traffic jams, sick kids, mistakes at the grocery store, and late soccer practices – but that’s life. By breaking down the tasks I was more prepared to reach my goal of sitting down to dinner together more often than not. As I look back, this makes me proud. Most evenings these days, my husband and I sit at this table together and can relive all those happy meals.