If you want to make an easy job seem mighty hard, just keep putting off doing it. – Olin Miller

Here’s a quick heads up. That six month project you just started – it’s going to take you seven months. If you’re clever and scheduled it for seven months – it’s going to take you eight. After spending my entire adult life sitting through one hour meetings that should have lasted 15 minutes, I am more confident than ever in Parkinson’s law.

If you’re not familiar with Parkinson, his law basically states, ‘work expands to fill the time available for completion.’ My addendum would be, “Plus 10%” – people tend to over-estimate their skills and under-estimate complexity.

Short Timeframes
If an atom, which literally means indivisible in Latin, can be divided; you can figure out how to divide your project too. Breaking a small piece off your project and setting a due date in the near future is the best way to push forward. If you can procrastinate and get it done; the timeframe isn’t short enough. This will create enough pressure to maximize productivity without limiting your ability to engage resources or be creative.

Concrete Deliverables
You’re much more likely to lose two pounds this week than your are to lose some weight. What is some weight? It’s an undefined deliverable that can be rationalized away. “I ate a bigger than usual lunch.” “I just drank a lot of water.” Wrong. You’re fat. Go for a jog. Concrete deliverables are defined and measurable. They make sure you are solving the right problem and not getting caught up in distractions.

Continuously moving forward (short timeframes) and in the right direction (concrete deliverables) makes big projects small and over time will make small paychecks big.