Let me in on a little secret on why you might be struggling a bit.

You’re sitting down to work, but it feels overwhelming and you don’t know where to go.

You have the tasks written down, your to-do lists are up-to-date and have you end goal in mind. Or maybe you’re just starting out and your end goal is the only thing you have.

Whatever it is, it doesn’t matter. You’re still struck.

And it feels like there’s no way out.

“Why is it that?” You ask, feeling like you want to delete everything.

Honestly, it’s just one of life’s great questions.

But what if there was a lesson hidden somewhere in the madness?

How breaking a task down works

This isn’t something groundbreaking, but it was something I realized when I hit the peak of my slowness.

A day, when I sat down to write, I couldn’t get the words out of my mind and down on the paper.

The words moved so slow. My brain felt like it was firing like a V8, but a third-person would see my fingers fall towards the keyboard in slow motion like a character right before the hero swings in and grabs them.

However, the difference here was, there was no hero.

I plumbed head first towards the ground. Luckily, the ground wasn’t the ground. It’s like when Will Smith jumps from the tower in Men in Black 3 and finds himself appear back in time.

It was the exact same experience.

“Okay Jack, that’s gotta be a lie”

Well kind of.

First off, I wasn’t going anywhere I was stuck in my chair and secondly, I’m not sure I’d have had the courage to jump.

But it still proves a point.

The slow work enabled something in my mind. It started to dissemble the tasks. I don’t know where it came from, but it was like the sky opened up and threw me a table with the inscription: Break down your task and thou shall keep going.

And my mind did just that. Or maybe it was my subconsciousness. I don’t know.

Anyway, the experience intrigued me and I experimented with a few more tasks during my editing phase.

The life-changing experience

I’d break down each task into a much simpler and clearer form, and it worked perfect.

It worked so great I’m willing to swear on my life and tell you: If a task is too general or too complex to the point where the complexity of a task makes your mind tell you: “Nope, it’s impossible.” (Which is essentially the same as laying your head on the block and telling the executioner to swing the axe.)

Then it’s a sign you need to find some simpler or more specific tasks.

And you do this by breaking down your tasks.

Sidenote: If you choose to ignore it, you might just end up on the floor, twisted up in a comforter, breaking down yourself.

Now to best explain how it works, I’m going to give you a few examples about writing and editing.

Writing example

Writing is the central piece of being a writer: It’s the oxygen to your brain and the blood to your body.

But unlike breathing and blood circulation, writing isn’t something that comes naturally to you and I understand that. I know there’s a general assumption that most of the people who wants to become writers are naturals writers, but if it’s that not the case with you, don’t feel bad about it.

First off, I take my hat off and bow down to you for taking on the task and challenging yourself. And just because writing isn’t something natural to you, as long as you enjoy it, then you might even be in a stronger place than so many others.

Because writing is writing, right?

Well kind of.

At least when you are natural.

But for you, the new writer who’s still trying to conquer the world of writing for the first time, then the idea of writing and publishing a full novel might seem overwhelming.

I understand, there’s a lot of things to think about. It’s a massive time investment and there are many things that can make you feel overwhelmed, this is what task breakdown will help you avoid.

How to avoid feeling overwhelmed

You start by taking a step back.

Okay, not like a physical step, but you zoom out just far enough to be able to see what’s required of your story.

Here’s an example of how I’d create a zoomed-out overview of the story. I’ll find things like:

• Introduction to story
• Introduction to characters
• Characters relationship reveal
• Conflict build up
• Conflict climax
• Resolution
• Ending

The answer to the first task is there’s no right or wrong answers.

You write down the things you decide to focus on. It’s okay to get inspiration from others, but if you add them just because some guy on the internet told you to, it’ll either (1) destroy your story or (2) make you hate the story. So, choose the elements that you believe the story should include.

Then you break down each element further, sort of like this:

• Introduction to story
  • Environment
  • Setting
• Introduction to characters
  • Main character(s)?
  • Support character(s)?
• Introduction to relationship
  • Who knows who and how?
  • Good or bad?

The ultimate outline

(If you have read my post on how to write a novel, then you might realize what you’re building sort of resembles an outline and that’s because it’s exactly what you’re. This is what task breakdown helps you with.)

Quick sidenote: I just need to mention, I have never used an outline besides for my first two stories. Personally, I don’t like the way it forces the story to fit into a box because I like to just let my mind go. This, however, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t use it if you think it can help you.

“But Jack, how can you say you don’t use outlines and then recommend it here?”

Because what task breakdown isn’t just an outline. It’s an overview of what you need to do and gives you specific tasks in their simplest form.

When you have this, it’s time to start working and instead of focusing on the whole thing (aka the whole novel), then you just focus on one task at the time.

So instead of saying: “Writing a novel,” you instead say: “Write the part of the introduction that focuses on describing the environment” and then just continue like this through the list.

This might seem like a lot of work, but it’s a great way to get started. It’s meant to help you gain the confidence and momentum to keep moving without. And if you reach this point, then you’ve successfully reaped the benefits of task breakdown.

Here’s an example of one of the first short stories I wrote, where I tried to breakdown each step:

Editing example

Because I had such an easy time writing my novel. I mean my fingers were on fire from the first word to the last, so imagine the stunned look on my face as a door suddenly slammed me in my face.

A big fat metal door with massive hinges hit me right in the face and forced me to slow down my editing.

It forced me away from my “I’ll figure it out” mentality and down on the floor.

But after a few days of turning my comforter to find a dry side, I dried my eyes and decided to act like an adult. I got up on my chair and thought the issue through.

I struggled to start even though I had a list of tasks. Everything was right there, but why couldn’t I do anything?

Then it hit me. Not like the door, but rather like a nice pad on the back: I had been through this before.

I thought back to when I wrote my first two short stories and how I battled my way through the task by breaking them down.

And since I had worked on my draft for a couple of weeks and I still had no idea “what’s next.” Then I knew what I needed to do.

To give you some insight my to-do-list basically looked like this:

Task breakdown in editing

It was a daily sore for the eye, sending a burning sensation through my body as I knew I was going nowhere. So, I took a step back to look at my work.

While task breakdown for editing isn’t the same as with writing, the concept is still the same.

“Rewrite dialogue” became “rewrite dialogue to match personalities.”

“Improve writing style” became “find elements of writing that excites you”

“Match personalities?” I thought, “What the hell does that have to do with anything,”

It was a massive sucker, but it made sense after I calmed down. I couldn’t really improve my characters dialogues before I “knew” my characters.

So basically, it gave me another task.

After another round of cussing, I smiled because I finally had something to do.

I did the personalities of my characters, and then suddenly it felt easier to rewrite the dialogue.

So, some times, while task breakdown helps you get to the root and take action on a task, it can also serve you a nice surprise on a silver platter.

A nice shining silver plate that helps you identify things that might be missing from your novel or can help improve your story further.

Recommendation for implementation

Now, I don’t recommend you do this with every task you have to do for your novel. It’ll just make the progress much longer and result in you burning out.

Task breakdown is a tool to keep in your writing bag if you ever find yourself stuck. Then you can pull it out like an invisible hand ready to pull you free. Or use it to gain some perspective on what’s missing from your work.

In fact, I’d always recommend that you try to make a task as specific as possible whenever you write it down. This not only make it easier to get started, but it also makes it easier for you to stay on track once you start.

The end, or is it?

Task breakdown, a simlpe powerful tool you can use to push some motion into your work again.

You can use it for pretty much everything, or anything where you need to find a root task. The two examples with writing and editing are just the things I have tried.

You can break down your novel writing into a list of small specific tasks, then you’ll quickly see writing is nothing but a cross-off list waiting to be filled out. (Okay, this might be an overstatement, but for the sake of simplicity it is.)

It’s not supposed to take forever, but if you’re stuck at a task and don’t know how to continue. Try to zoom out and see if you can’t find a way to make it simpler, more specific and elaborated.

That’s a wrap for you today.

Until next time – Hope you have a productive and creative day.

Your writing buddy,

Jack

Authorbytrade – Time to take control of your creativity.