How to Eat an Elephant

Running a business is a big undertaking – I’m sure when you started your business, you knew you would put in serious hours, and maybe more than you had originally planned (but you love it because your business is your baby!). From start to finish, you’ll have hundreds of tasks and projects to complete, such as deciding your business type, figuring out the name of your business, designing your logo, and setting up your website; some tasks and items can take a matter of minutes or hours, and some can take weeks, months, or even a year or more.

You may find yourself completing the fastest tasks first so you can feel accomplished and productive. If you’re anything like me, you may save the bigger projects for last. Thinking about how much work, time, and resources you will have to dedicate to this project, can be overwhelming. An advisor of mine gave me a strategy that works for me that’s simple and user-friendly. Thinking back to when I conceptualized my strenuous project, if I had used this strategy, it could have saved me months of headaches.

Big Projects

After having my business for a couple years, I felt that I was ready to go off on my own and leave my full-time job. After a few months of planning, I left my job, and I wanted to rebrand my business. I finished the simpler tasks with the rebranding, but I had one project I could not bring myself to do. I had this great vision that I wanted to completely redo my website and rebrand it, add interactive elements, and bring my website up to par. My former website was great, and it did its job, but it was plain and not exciting. As I thought about all the elements I wanted to add, I mentally calculated how long it would take, and with each additional element, I started to feel more and more out of control. The thought of completely redoing everything felt like more of a “hope” if I had additional time on top of everything else I had to do. Rebranding my website was only one subset of business development I was doing at the time, on top of working with normal contract clients. It seemed like the website took a backseat to everything, and I never prioritized working on it. My current website was fine, and it helped people find me, it was okay for now, and I shouldn’t be too worried.

When I plan for the current work week, I make a fresh handwritten to-do list. I look at last week’s list, I write the items that I didn’t check last week, and I add my new items for week. When I’m finished, it’s a nice bulky list, but I expect to complete 75% of the list, and if I do more than that, it was an extra productive week! It seemed like week after week, “Website Rebrand” was constantly being pulled from the previous to-do list to the current one. Before I knew it, three months passed, and I barely made a dent in my new website. I needed to find a way to finish this massive project.

How Do You Eat an Elephant?

I was talking to my business guru, advisor, and mentor (my mom – one of the people who made me want to start my business). I told her about this obstacle I was facing with my website. Week after week, I would do all the other tasks, and I could never manage to do this important project because it felt unattainable. My mom listened to me voice my concerns with my website she simply asked me -

“How Do You Eat an Elephant?”

I was a bit confused – but she tends to have her weird, helpful phrases and idioms, so I replied, “How?”

She responded with -

“One bite at a time.”

Which made me laugh and grow curious. She explained that you must break down big projects (an elephant) into bite-sized, manageable pieces. The thought of eating a whole elephant is worrisome; you can’t eat it in one day, it won’t fit into your stomach, and you’ll go mad trying to picture it. You can only eat one bite at a time, and don’t bite off more than you can handle. She didn't create this popular phrase, but she introduced me to it, and I think of her when I say this phrase.

I realized that my elephant was my website rebranding. I was adding “Website Rebrand” on my to-do list as if it were something I could check off in a week. It’s an enormous project, and it’s discouraging not completing it week after week, but I decided I had to break my website into manageable pieces.

Instead of adding “Website Rebrand” the following week, I made “Website Rebrand” a category in my to-do list, and I added “Recreating Testimonials,” “Rewrite Home Page Verbiage,” “Home Page Graphics,” “Home Page Services” under the category. I added a handful of elements that I could realistically finish in a week, and each week I checked them off. This gave me a sense of progress and productivity with my website; I had action items that could be measured. Projects often have several moving parts to arrange and coordinate. If you don’t break it down into manageable sections, you could end up neglecting it all together or doing a poor job. I created an outline for the website - elements to create, everything I wanted to add, and new pages to create. Visually and mentally planning it out give you an idea of how you want to tackle to project and the next steps.

Break it Down

The advice she gave me stuck with me, and I applied it in all aspects of my life. Even the largest projects are accomplishable with a realistic mindset and breaking down achievable tasks. In addition to breaking down and categorizing your projects, organization and outlining is crucial, so you know where to go when you finish one portion.

Of course, I don’t condone eating actual elephants, but break down your proverbial elephant anytime you feel like you’re working with densely layered projects with many moving pieces.