Break It Down to Get ‘Er Done – Well

Mmmm... hot legs - the real reason run.

“One man’s mile is another man’s marathon.”  Don’t know if anyone has ever said this before, but sure sounds like someone has.  Or how about this one, “How do you run a marathon?  One step at a time.”  The reason the marathon is on the forefront of my mind is because I’m planning on running the Philadelphia Marathon this year for the second time.

One thing that’s impressed me as I’ve started training is that whether I’m going out to run 4 hard miles, going to the track to do a few 400s (one lap around the track), or actually going to run the full 26.2 miles; each of these runs/workouts is its own challenge, even marathon.  I found that to perform well, even just to run one good lap around the track, I need to break these challenges down into thirds or fourths. 

For instance, if I don’t divide just one lap around the track into manageable chucks then I go out too fast and putter out in the end.  So now when I go to the track to run 400s, I’ve broken each 100 into different focusing phrases that I repeat rhythmically in my head as I run around the track:

• The first 100 I say, “Accelerate it up, accelerate it up, accelerate up…” as I want to build speed.
• As I go around the curve for the second 100, I say, “Lock it in, lock it in, lock it in…” as I want to maintain my speed.
• For the third 100, I say “Stride it out, stride it out, stride it out” as I want to increase my stride going down the second straight away.
• And finally for the last 100, I say “Push it out, push it out, push it out” as I want to finish strong and leave it all on the track.

I’ve begun to apply this approach to my work – breaking my days, weeks, and projects down into manageable chunks with focusing phrases.  My natural tendency is to look at the day, week or a project and just try to tackle it and “get ‘er done;” but just like at the track I don’t have the energy and focus to finish strong.  For instance, here’s how my day might look when I segment it into thirds:

• First part of my day I want to “cross off client project to dos”
• Second part of my day “long term project and CRM planning”
• Third part of my day “social media and Internet marketing research and planning”

Now that I got my day broken down, I have focus for each part of the day and natural breaking points for me to eat something, read something funny, pray, and re-energize for the next part of the day.  Let me know how you approach your daily, weekly, and project planning – what’s working for you or how you feel you could improve in your approach to your work days, weeks and projects?

Everett

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