One of the most challenging (yet also rewarding) aspects of knowledge work is that it requires our creativity. And creativity can’t really be sustained without a sense of motivation. You can’t keep doing your best thinking and contributing your best ideas if you’re burned out and demoralized.
What does our motivation depend on? Mostly, on making consistent progress. We can endure quite a bit of stress and frustration in the short term if we know it’s leading somewhere.
Which brings us to our second problem: without a list of individual projects, you can’t connect your current efforts to your long-term goals.
Look at the original list above again. None of the items on it will end or change—that’s the definition of an area of responsibility, that it continues indefinitely. Now imagine the psychological effect of waking up week after week, month after month, and even year after year to the exact same list of never-ending responsibilities. No matter how hard you work, the endless horizon never seems to get any closer.
Honestly, I couldn’t design a better way to kill motivation if I tried.
When you break down your responsibilities into bite-size projects, you ensure that your project list is constantly turning over. This turnover creates a cadence of regular victories that you get to celebrate every time you successfully complete a project. Imagine how motivated and accomplished you’d feel by breaking out a broad area like “Events” into each individual event you’re organizing: