Setting smaller goals than usual gets more done

Since I’ve started using cards to make to-do lists in a effort to manage my time I’ve made some good progress in getting things done.
Once I started making measurable improvements I thought the obvious next step was to make my goals a bit more ambitious.

This made things even worse.

I tried writing things like

“Improve design on blog A”
“Write more articles for blog B”

The first problem is that these are not measurable tasks.
How much work do I have to do before the design is “improved”
Should I keep going until it wins an award?

How many articles should I write and how long should they be?
What will these articles be about?

If I try to complete these tasks I won’t be certain of when they are finished and will feel that the task hasn’t been completed. Do I cross it off and move on to something else? More likely is that I’ll come back to it again and try to do more. The longer I spend on a vague task the more likely I am to become frustrated.

The ideal task can be judged to be complete with a yes/no question.

• Has a CSS layout been created with 3 even columns that display equally well in firefox and IE?
• Has the blogging software been edited to use the layout when it displays posts?
• Does the blogging software now display an image in the navigation for each unique section of the website?
• Does each post now include an image that aligns to the right?

It’s a wordy list and you don’t have to write it down like that. What’s important is that you can definitely say whether the task has been completed or not.

The second thing which can help your progress is to keep the tasks quite short. Something that can be completed within an hour or 2 seems to work for me.Personally I prefer to work in short bursts.

Shorter tasks are easier to start. I’m less prone to procrastinate if my job is only going to take 30 minutes and once the job is done the sense of accomplishment usually leads me to start another task straight away.

I still make the bigger plans breaking up big projects into sections that might take a week or longer to complete but as long as there’s a current list of manageable things to do I’ll get stuck in.

I hope this method can help me to get small things done in the ‘in between times’ as well as when I have a full day to work at something. My schedule can be quite irregular and I need to have a method for chipping away at the bigger tasks.