Chunking things down
I remember when I was working at Toyota we would often have guest speakers at our business meetings.
One of those speakers (and I apologise I can’t remember who it was ) introduced this concept of ‘chunking things down’ to us around the idea of problem solving.
When you face a large, complicated problem with multiple intricacies to it, it can often feel overwhelming to even begin planning how to address it, let alone taking on the task of solving it.
That said, by breaking things into smaller chunks, we can then start work on the problem and solving pieces as we go. In essence - this is no different to solving a jigsaw puzzle right? We generally begin with the corner pieces (because there’s typically only 4 of those), then the edges, then we work our way inwards until the puzzle is complete.
There’s a certain logical progression solving a puzzle takes that is no different to solving more complex problems as well.
As we solve smaller problem sets, we can then review the impact on the larger picture and adjust our focus as we go.
To reverse our thinking on this idea would be to consider a publicly listed company - did this company have aspirations to get this big from the get go? Possibly… But did they get there in one step? Absolutely not.
Taking an example from my friend Tim Fung’s Airtasker story - Tim and my friend Ivan came up with the idea when moving apartments and thinking there has to be a way to get paid help for this kind of thing and boom - the idea was born.
It was through a series of smaller chunks of growth and learning that the company was eventually able to be taken through to IPO, it wasn’t achieved in just one massive step.
If you wanted to listen to these stories you can at the link here.
Anyway, my purpose in reflecting on the idea of chunking things down was in application to my own life and priorities.
I’m the kind of person that suffers from a lack of time, which in essence probably also indicates I suffer from a lack of priorities.
I think for me it’s likely having to many priorities (oops) and that’s why I think it’s important to reflect and chunk down on what are the core focuses I have in life.
In doing so, I realise I probably should write down (but also let go of) certain ideas that would be fun to do, however aren’t the key focuses I have in life.
It’s kind of freeing to let go of some of these things and hopefully it will allow me to apply a renewed focus on the core priorities I have.
If you were to view each day as having an ‘energy bar’ and you have 100 percentage points to spend on things before you run out of energy are you happy with where you’re spending it?
If not… it might be time to chunk things down in life..
