I am a bit of a walking contradiction when it comes to projects and planning. On one hand, I love lists. There is something tactile and satisfying about being able to see a chore or task be crossed off on a list. Growing up, I would make lists about everything, creating an inventory of my sports cards, collectible card games, action figures, games, you name it. Even today, I like be able to scan lists of books I’ve read or articles gathered. I have an idea of creating a pantry or inventory application for our food purchases – put it on the “list” of things to get to eventually.

That being said, I hate project planning. All too often, I want to simply dive into the problem and solving it before taking the time to break it down, schedule it out, and, especially, ugh, budget it. Some of this is the horror of the committee planning session and group think but much of it is a desire to get cracking and the feeling that planning is time away from doing.

I’ve gradually and, sometimes, painfully learned the lesson of planning. Two illustrations have greatly helped me in this regard.

The first is the classic metaphor of eating the elephant. As the saying goes: “How does one eat an elephant? One bite at a time.” While this has been attributed to many people, the wisdom is timeless. The only way to tackle a very big goal is to break it down. While this concept is simple, the actual application of it is much more complicated. After all, there’s more to eating than simply bite, chew; bite chew. Where to start to preserve as much elephant as possible? Where does one even start? That’s the planning part but it all boils down to actually doing it one step at a time.

The second is the classic internet meme of drawing the owl. Again, I’m not sure where this one originated although I first heard about it on an episode of Invest Like the Best. (If I can find the specific episode I’ll link directly but in the meantime I highly recommend checking out that podcast as a whole!) The meme is above but the point is the jump from the most fundamentals basics to the beautiful finished project. I’m great at day dreams – planning out what could happen. I’m also pretty good at starting, getting those basic shapes on the page. Its just that whole messy middle part where you actually get it done that’s hard.

Of course, its hard. That’s the point. It’s easier though if instead of some elephant sized gap between the first step and however you define success you have realistic size steps. That is the inspiration for EntreBurnor‘s logo: the partially drawn flamingo. There is no deep metaphor for the flamingo. Just the fact that for some bizarre reason flamingos seem to show up around our family quite often, from our favorite haunt on Long Beach Island to a random Pier One gift statue, flamingos are common enough around this house that it seemed to fit.

So, when you’re feeling stuck getting from the obscure shapes to the dream picture, break it down, draw the lines one at a time, and maybe, if you keep at it, you’ll end up with a fully drawn flamingo.