We were scheduled to fly out of Casablanca on Wednesday. I should be snuggled up in my cozy home office in Arizona, writing this to you.
Instead, I’m still here in Morocco, hanging out in an AirBNB for a couple of days.
See, yesterday’s email wasn’t just a hypothetical, “Here’s what to do when you have a big project.” It’s what we’re living.
Our flight was canceled, and now we’re navigating how and when to rebook so that it has the least financial/mental/physical impact.
We’re approaching this “project” exactly as I recommended yesterday: one small, doable task at a time.
Step one is to get back to my Villa on the Hilla and regroup. We’ve hired a car to pick us up tomorrow morning, and we will be home by dinner. So that’s done.
Next, we’ll navigate the flights. This would be easier if we were in Europe, or if we lived on the East Coast of the US. Getting back and forth from Africa to Arizona? It’s brutal. Totally worth it, but exhausting and expensive nonetheless.
✈️ International travel is not for the faint of heart, y’all.
If I let myself think about all the things that have to happen, I can easily become overwhelmed. It’s a lot to manage.
But when I think about just the next step, it’s easy.
That’s the entire system: define the project, identify the very next action, and ignore everything else until that’s done.
After yesterday’s email, several of you wrote for more clarity. You wanted more details about how to take a big, messy project and turn it into action steps that feel more manageable.
So while I’m sitting here chilling in my AirBNB, I wrote it up for you.
From Overwhelmed to Done: A System for Completing Big Projects
If you’re the kind of solopreneur who gets stuck in planning mode because everything feels important, this will help.
Cindy “one step at a time” Bidar