What if it Was Easy?

We’ve all been there. Deep in the beginning stages of a project–and actually, it’s not quite the beginning. The beginning is fun! That’s when we jot down the ideas and it all just flows, and we have our mindmaps and our vision boards, and even after we’ve gotten it out of our minds and onto the page, it’s still shiny and new and exciting. 

No, I’m talking about when you are IN IT. When you find yourself faced with an epic to-do list, and looming deadline, and emails and texts from people involved who are doing their very best to um…if not totally burn it down, then at least keep you on your toes. Someone cancels on you and you have to find a replacement. You are sent strange forms that you need to figure out in order to apply for the permit. It can feel like you’re drowning in it all, and it’s enough to make you want to quit. 

That’s when most people quit. 

But you’re not most people, are you? 

What if I told you there was a slight mindset shift you could make that would end the sense of overwhelm and maybe, just possibly, turn it into an almost enjoyable experience? 

What if it was Easy? 

 

 

Now, by “Easy” I don’t mean that you can sit on your sofa playing video games all day and suddenly you’ll have a finished project ready to launch. Great accomplishments take work. Sometimes that work involves long hours. So if you’re afraid of working, this episode isn’t for you. But you’re a creative, which means you are not afraid of work. You’ll spend hours working on a piece of music, new choreography, standing in front of a canvas until it’s just right. 

You’re no wimp. 

But what if those long hours didn’t feel like like “hard work.” What if they felt…Easy?

It’s a tool I came to out of desperation. I was at a point of complete paralysis staring at everything that had to be done to launch a new project. 

The to-do list, the responsibility, the new skills required, the complicated forms my dyslexic brain couldn’t make heads or tails out of, it was all so overwhelming I wanted to cry “uncle” and quit it all. 

But I didn’t want to quit. I WANTED to see this project out in the world. It was important to me, and it was going to be important to a lot of other people too. So I had to figure something out. 

I took a deep breath and looked at the tasks before me. As a whole, it looked insurmountable, but I was in survivor mode. And like any good survivor movie, I just needed to put one foot in front of the other. 

What followed became my go-to way of approaching my work. Thankfully, you don’t have to get into survival mode for it to work. If you start with it, it’ll ward off the overwhelm like an evil eye. 

 

 

Here’s how to make it easy. 

 

1. Identify what is making it feel hard. 

Sometimes, what is feeling “hard” is really just annoyance. Annoyance that the list of tasks is going to take a long time. It doesn’t seem fair that you have to work a couple of hours on the weekends to get it done. It’s not right that you don’t have a staff to help you. Frustration is another one that comes up. You need to log in, but you can’t remember your password, so before you can even get started, you need to reset your password. We’ve all been there. But that’s not hard. It’s just frustrating as hell. 

And sometimes it’s because there is a skill involved that you’re not comfortable with yet. Maybe the project requires setting up Facebook ads–and, if it makes you feel any better, it’s not you, my friend. Those are notoriously annoying to set up the first time. 

Sometimes it’s a concern over the outcome that makes it all feel so hard. We feel a sense of responsibility for the result, so every step feels wrought with risk. You might fear that someone will say no, or that it won’t be possible. That there might be obstacles that you need to overcome. 

Maybe, but you’ll figure out the next step then. Why are you letting the fear of something not going well, keep you from doing it at all? 

Identifying what is at the root of it feeling “hard” can help us unravel it and get around it. If it’s the annoyance of it. The unfairness of having to do the work, you have 2 choices. You can hire help, or, if you don’t have the funds, or you simply don’t want to relinquish control, then just accept that it’s a project that is going to temporarily take up quite a bit of space on your calendar, but that it’ll be worth it. You’ll be fine. The time will pass either way. This way, you’ll have a finished project at the end. 

If it’s about a skill that you’re lacking, you can learn the skill. Instead of staring blankly at that FB ads manager screen scratching your head, open a new tab, watch a couple of Youtube videos explaining the step-by-step process, and just do it. One step at a time. 

And if it’s concern for the result? Reminding yourself that there is just as much chance of it all going well, and that no matter WHAT the result is, you’ll have grown in all sorts of ways, and you’ll have valuable experience that can help make the NEXT one even better. 

 

2. Find the “Easy”

Once you’ve identified WHY the tasks in front of you seem hard, you can break it down into easy steps. Let’s go back to that frustrating moment of trying to log in and needing to reset your password. 1st. Breathe. 2nd. You just need to reset your password. That’s not hard. 3rd. Ah. 2-step verification, but your phone is in the other room. Again, that’s not hard. You just need to get up, walk into the other room, and get your phone. Easy. Then you need to enter those numbers in. Then you need to log in again, and now you can get on with it. 

All told, that minor setback only costs you about 90 seconds of work time–you’ll waste far more than that doom scrolling on Instagram during your project work, trust me. So don’t sweat it. Focusing on the ease of each task keeps the blood pressure down, and the cortisol at bay. 

You just need to find their email address from their website. You just need to enter a question into the search bar. You just need to answer the questions on the form. One by one. 

Make it a little game you can play. How is this stupidly simple? You’ll find that even the most complicated tasks (I’m looking at you multi-country business taxes!) are just a series of hundreds of seriously easy tasks. (“Write your full name on this line”). 

Easy does it. 

 

3. What would Easy look like? 

Think of something that you do often now that felt overwhelmingly difficult the first time you did it. Driving a car? Teaching a lesson? Buying a car? Making Bolognese? When you do that thing now, it feels super easy.

Before, you kept an air of intense nervous focus while reading each line of the bolognese recipe 5 times making sure you weren’t chopping too many or two few carrots–you were so afraid of messing it up. You yell at your partner to turn the music down because you need to concentrate!  These days? you’ve got some tunes on, you wipe your hands on your well-loved apron and pour yourself a glass of chianti to enjoy while you cook. You gather ingredients on the table and start chopping, stirring, browning. No recipe in sight, because you know it by heart now. You can have a conversation with your partner while you cook and you’re laughing and smiling, thinking about the incredible meal in your near future. 

The latter is much nicer, right? Seems fun. The work isn’t any easier now. You’ve had more practice, so you can do it faster, sure, but chopping an onion is chopping an onion. 

So put the tunes on now and enjoy the process. 

For you, think about a project that seems difficult to you now. Could be a piece you’re working on, or an event you’re planning. Imagine you’ve performed the piece for years, or that this is the 4th year in a row for your amazing event. 

How would it feel to do the work if it all truly felt easy and familiar? Would you have your feet up on the desk? Would you be thinking more about phrasing than panicked about making the shift? Would you have music on? Send the necessary emails like they’re your old friends and collaborators? 

How does the energy shift when you think about it that way? How can you bring some of those things into your current work? How would you approach your new work if it felt more like returning to an old friend? 

 

4. Be Kind to Future You

When we do things for the first time, they can take a while to figure out. It might have been a series of stupidly simple tasks, but there might have been a lot of them! You can make your future life a lot easier by creating a template of it. Did you finally settle on the perfect project budget? Great. Make it a template that you can use the next time you do a project. You might end up tweaking it a bit, but you won’t have to start from scratch again. 

 

5. Systematize the Process for Next Time

As you work through various tasks, you might find that, as easy as the individual steps are, you could make the whole process easier for you. Example: Doing your taxes. It’s not HARD to go through all of your accounts and credit card statements each year, but you COULD set up quickbooks and save yourself a lot of steps (and time) in the future. As you work, jot down ideas you have to make your life even easier. 

 

6. Keep a Needed Skills/Knowledge List

Speaking of jotting down ideas, keep a list going-in an app, or a google doc–whatever you like that is easily accessible–nd write down skills that you’d like to develop, or knowledge you’d like to obtain. Maybe while setting up your first website, you kept reading about the importance of SEO. Maybe your priority was in getting the website up and running as soon as possible. Great. Add SEO to your list of things that you’d like to learn about when you have more time. 

Other examples might be: FB ads, Non-profit structures, or French. I like to choose one thing from my list each quarter and dig in a bit. I’m always surprised when it comes in handy! 

 

These last 3, Creating templates, setting up systems, and creating a skills list are all great ideas for a Quarterly Retreat.  Mine is coming up next week–actually, if you’re reading this in real-time, it’s at the end of THIS week, and I CANNOT wait! I love these little stay-at-home retreats I do every quarter to take stock of the last 90 days, set up the next 90 days, and take a bit of time to organize and optimize all the things. It’s the best. And, if you would like to do one too, I created a little guide on how to structure one to get the most out of a few days (or partial days). 

You can grab the link HERE, and get started on setting up your own retreat. We’re coming up to the end of Quarter 1, so this is the perfect time! 

Okay, my friend. Have an amazing week! And don’t forget to find the Easy in everything you do. 

Cheers, 

Kate