As a home moving company, we are busiest when realtors are moving houses quickly through the market, and homeowners are moving from their old, into their new homes. A beautifully prepared, staged home sells quicker and for a better price, so we know it is important to prepare your home to show at its best. Some people have no problem subbing out tasks, or doing them themselves if they know how; but, if you find yourself putting off that To Do Punch List because it seems overwhelming, here’s great advice to help get you into action!
According to Vicki Garcia, Founder of My Kick-Ass Coach™ and graduate of the Fearless Living Institute™, tasks are most easily handled when broken down into pieces—little, bitty pieces if necessary. Pick a task, and write it out in the smallest possible steps. You may scoff at the deceptive simplicity of this exercise. If you are a procrastinator, the first tiny step may be more than you have done in a week, so give this a chance.
Vicki’s coaching might look like this:
Task: Clean Rain Gutters
Steps:
- Look in garage for ladder. Note: it doesn’t say anything about taking the ladder out! Yet, this simple step takes care of two things: a) you know whether or not you actually have a ladder, or need to buy one; b) you’ve accomplished something already. Whether or not you’ve read The One-Minute Manager, crossing items off a list is exhilarating! And, you are in action!
- Take ladder out of garage; put by house. (Or: —Buy new ladder.)
- Gather cleaning tools: gloves, scraper, bucket.
- Check hose works.
- Schedule 3 hours to clean gutters.
- Call spouse; tell date and time.
- And so on……..
Now you can play the game of seeing how many tasks you can accomplish in one day, or tell yourself that you will work for a set amount of time, say one hour or even 10 minutes, it really doesn’t matter) be satisfied with how much you get done.
Tiny steps call for action, and no matter how small that action is, the job is getting done! The real miracle is you realize that overwhelming tasks really are not. As you gain confidence you’ll gain momentum, getting more done. Soon, your beautiful home is on the market! Plus, you’ll discover that if a task truly is out of your league, you can quickly sub it out.
Breaking down tasks into manageable bits can also be used for packing up your house, or cleaning the office, closet or garage. Really, any task that you’ve been putting off you can now approach the bite-size way!
Please let us know if this was helpful to you, and how you used it; we love success stories.