Why a simple task can feel enormous and what to do about it

This is for you when you love complex tasks (the P in FIPAC) and tend to be fast with your brain too.

Here is how that plays out — you are getting a small task from a client and instead of focusing on that small task, you do basically everything else.

Not because you cannot do the small task, but because you are overwhelmed. Or one could say under-whelmed.

You do that task in 2 minutes and think:

That cannot be it. That just does not work. It is way too easy, I must be missing something.

And then you run into your normal mode of complex tasks like:

• I work in 10 codebases in parallel and now there is that small little task — let's handle that in the same way. Massive over-kill for a task that is at least 10 layers below your original task.

• I give trainings to clients in various sizes on a constant basis. Now you ask me to give a small part of one training for one client and I spend ages there to perfect it. But I did that perfection in 2 minutes and then got lost in "what else needs to be done" — when in reality I was just done at the first attempt, done so quick as I normally act.

• You create your whole company and business taxes yourself (massive pain point when you are for real complex and fast) — but you did that and then someone asks you about one small piece within that thing — you look it up, have it, have the data — but then? You think maybe it is somewhere else too and down the rabbit hole you go.

• You handle 200 clients on a regular basis, with all that is related to it. Works like a charm, fast, effective, you master it. Then that one client comes up, a small one and only that, and you run into overdrive as you handle that client like you handle the other 200 in parallel.

Instead of realizing that it may be simple, you give it a complexity that that task does not deserve and thus eat out all your resources:

• you make it massive while it isn't

• you solve for complexity while it needs a simple solution

• you spend too much energy as you think "there must be more", that just cannot be it alone, that you look for hidden flaws, issues, puzzles to solve that don't need puzzling at all

Why does that happen? You simply think in different layers as your default mode.

Imagine thinking in these complex interconnected systems — and now someone asks you a question that is not about these super complex interconnected systems and you use that same mindset and framework. As it comes so natural to you, as that is how you operate, you use that same frame also for that small task. But that small task is not how you normally operate and for you that is a massive discrepancy. It is almost like not understanding. That task needs a different way of approaching.

It needs a step back and an understanding:

On which layer does that task operate? Is it the one that I normally and currently run on? Is it that super complex interconnected spiderweb of 10 codebases or 200 clients with massive amounts of information that you keep in your mind to juggle all that is going on — or is it 10 clients or 2 trainings or is it 1 client or is it one small task within a codebase?

What is it — what is the layer you need to go down to for that task?

And then ask yourself and keep in mind that the complexity of that task is normally proportional to the amount of layers you need to go down to for that task.

So just because that task is a task someone asks you for, you do not need to bring the same energy into that as a complex task.

Instead you adapt your energy and focus on that task and just do it as if it is one of many within your more complex tasks. Making it and keeping it deliberately small and understanding it is small. And that also does not need massive effort.

The benefit:

• Even if you will ask 10 times — "but that seems too easy? that just cannot be? I must miss something" — trust your instincts and practice them: some tasks are just not as complex as your brain may tend to make them. Simply as you are focused on that massive work as your natural habitat.

• You do yourself and your calmness a big favor if you accept that not all things in life are complex and some things just feel too easy to be true — trust that and don't derail that thought and feeling but go with it.

• And if you really need and feel complexity is needed and the same approach as for complex projects — then take a step back, breathe and ask those that are involved in that task if that is really what they need: "What in detail do you want as a result in complexity?" — that often allows you to see more clear and focus on the layer that really matters.

• Try it out and let me know how that works for you. Curious about your experience.