Too Long, Didn’t Read: The high level summary for turning mountains back into molehills
Step 1: The Everything List (Mountain Range)
Brain dump everything that needs doing — no filter, just get it out of your head.Step 2: The Projects List (Mountains)
Break big tasks into smaller ones that can be done within a few days. Prioritize and identify dependencies.Step 3: The Weekly List (Boulders)
Break big tasks into smaller ones that can be done within a few days. Prioritize and identify dependencies.Step 4: The Daily List (Rocks)
Choose realistic, bite-sized tasks for each day. If it’s too big for one day, split it up.Step 5: The Moment List (Pebbles)
Create a tiny, doable to-do list for right now. Each item should be completable in one sitting/sprint/effort (<45 min).Cross it off
Physically mark tasks as done — this builds trust in your agency and encourages momentum.Celebrate your wins
Daily and weekly celebration boosts motivation and reinforces progress. Project celebration helps to reinforce new neural circuits.Ask for help if you’re stuck
You don’t have to do it all alone. Support systems work!Take off more than you add
Even small progress counts. One stone at a time is still movement. Ignore that impulse for perfection.
Turning a Mountain Into a Molehill: A Practical Guide to Getting Things Done Without the Overwhelm
Ever looked at your day and thought, “Wow, that’s just all a bit too much?” That looming mountain of tasks can feel impossible to scale. But here’s a mindset shift: you don’t move a mountain all at once, you move it one pebble at a time.
Let’s turn that immovable mountain into a pile of movable pebbles. The key is breaking big, overwhelming tasks into smaller, manageable actions. Here's a four step system to help you get from stuck to steady.
🏔️ Step 1: The Everything List (A.K.A. The Mountain Range)
This is the brain dump. Every single thing that needs doing - personal, professional, errands, creative ideas, future plans - all of it goes here. Just write it down in a big ‘ol list. Don’t worry about organizing yet. The goal is to externalize the overwhelm and get it out of your head.
Once it’s all out on the page, if it helps, you can try sorting it into categories like “home,” “work,” “relationships,” or “health.” You can also sort by priority (high, medium, low, etc), or by time. Whatever helps impose some order onto the chaos. The point here is NOT to focus on perfection, it’s to get moving. You don’t need everything down, you just need a start. You’ll return to this list as you add new things, and with some effort, start crossing things off.
It can be helpful make nested dependency lists at this point, using this lists as an initial outline that you can revisit. That might look something like this:
Mountain Range - All the things!
Specific Project (Around a month, max)
Week long project (there are likely a few of these bullet points)
Day long tasks that add up to the week long task goals
Single serving tasks that accomplish the day long task goals
You can use pen and paper, the note taking app on your phone, or a dedicated task organizer like a kanban board to organize this big list. There are tons of ways to do it, the best one is the one that works, and that you will stick with.
Or whatever structure do you use, whatever structure do you use, I suggest making your daily to-do list on paper. There is a satisfaction that comes from crossing off and throwing away a piece of paper at the end of the day that is not accomplished the same way in an app. The serotonin that helps reset the dopamine is more easily access through physical means.
🗻 Step 2: The Mountain - Monthly
This is when we start getting specific and prevent overwhelm. The first task is to break down the big list into major projects. These major projects represents the mountains. Mountains are climbable, and we can plan to succeed in doing so. Even if our intention is to eventually climb the entire mountain range, this is accomplished one mountain at a time. Mountains should be no longer than one month in length and if they are, they should be considered more than one mountain and split appropriately. Scaling and fountain is a superhuman effort and requires planning in order to make success possible identifying which specific mountain you wanna climb starts at planning process.
Step 3: Boulders - Weekly
This is where we start breaking down the mountain into more manageable chunks. Look at your goal and then break that goal down into sub tasks and dependencies. make a rough guess on how long each task might take. If something looks longer than a week, break it down further. Keep creating more tasks until each one takes less than a week. “Write a book” becomes “outline the chapters.” “Clean the garage” becomes “organize the storage bins and the tool shelves.” Each task here should feel doable within a few days, maximum.
This is also a great phase to prioritize, identify dependencies, and recognize deadlines. But remember at this stage, it’s still too big to act on directly. We’re not done breaking things down yet.
Again, it can be helpful make subtask lists at this point, using this lists as a“staging point” from which you will track the daily progress outlined below. It can help a lot with prioritization, and also, can help with that all important feedback loop of celebrating your wins! It's fun to watch our boulders get crossed off line by line!
🪨 Step 3: Rocks - Daily
This is where weekly tasks are turned into day-sized goals. Think: “call dentist,” “prep slides,” “put cleaning chemicals away.” You can even rank them by necessity, like must-do, nice-to-do, or bonus if it happens.
If it still feels too big, keep slicing. “Clean apartment” becomes “vacuum bedroom” and “put away laundry.”
Each item should feel like something you can and will finish today. And all the tasks you identify for today should realistically be doable within the day. If the list feels too heavy, spread the load across a few days. Don’t forget to allow for complexities, and for person time. This should include some rest and relaxation!
Capacity is an important point of discussion here. Each day will have a different amount of work that can be completed, we’ll call this work units. This number will be different for everybody and comparing your working unit to anyone else's is a recipe for disappointment. Each day is also gonna be a bit different. How you slept, external stressors, sickness, and pre-existing engagements all change the daily capacity and should be approached day by day versus through comparison. If you completed five work units yesterday, that's awesome! You may only have the capacity to complete three today, and that's still awesome! Remember that comparison is the thief of joy.
🪨 Step 4: Pebbles - Hourly
This is the actual to-do list you work from in the moment. The now list. These are tasks you can complete in one focused sitting: one effort, one subject, one hour long sprint, one breath, one cup of coffee.
Include everything here, not just the “productive” stuff. Walk the dog. Drink water. Meditate. Shower. Eat lunch. Text your friend back. These count. Life admin is real work.
Once you’ve got your list? Do the thing. One thing. Then the next. And the next.
This is where the work gets DONE.
One benefit of dopamine being addictive is that when we get dopamine from completing a task, we then have motivation to complete the next task to get more dopamine. Use this to your advantage.
Stick to ONE task at a time. Try to avoid or at least severely limit multi-tasking to necessity for completing your current task.
If you need to, recognize that you are switch-tasking, this will actually make you more efficient, as it keeps you focused. This looks like: load laundry (switch), put away groceries (switch), clean kitchen counter (switch), put laundry in dryer (switch), clean bathroom (switch), etc… this is an advanced technique, and should only be attempted once you have proficiency in completing your pebbles for the day.
Humans, for the most part, actually CANNOT multitask, and we are not very good at rapid switchtasking. If you don’t believe me, take a few minutes to take this quiz, and see for yourself.
Estimating task availbility
This is key!
You have a limited amount of work sprints each day. This can be limited by time, energy, previous commitments, or mental capacity, among other things. Correctly estimating each “pebble”, as well as how many “pebbles” you can manage in a day is key to feeling good about your productivity. If you estimate you can handle 10 tasks, but you only have time/energy to accomplish 3, you’re setting yourself up for disappointment. I generally recommend undercommitting and overdelivering as a way to ensure satisfaction. For many, labels like “lazy” or “distracted” or “ADHD” can get us down and kill our motivation to try to get a project done. Setting commitments in a gentle way allows us to sustainably accomplish, work against our limiting beliefs, and deliver the satisfaction (serotonin hit) that encourages a repeat performance the next day. This will lead to overall increaswe in productivity, instead of big efforts that leave us feeling burnt out.
“I generally recommend undecommitting and over delivering as a way to ensure satisfaction”
To start, plan for 4 pebbles. 3 work sprints, and one clean up sprint. See how it goes. If it goes well, add one more. Trust your timers, and trust the process.
I highly recommend the Pomodoro Technique for effort management. This is defined as focused time on with a built-in rest. An example of this can look like 45 minutes on, five minutes off, 45 minutes on, 15 to 30 minutes off. The time intervals are adjustable to your individual capacity and preference but I do not recommend going over 60 minutes for a single sprint. The average human's attention span for focused work is about 45 minutes, and the mandatory rest helps to reset and prepare for the next effort, as well as making sure that thinking is optimal. If you over perform and complete a task before your timer runs out, stop and take a break. Take your five minutes and begin your next task. Try not to move directly onto the next task and try to shove it into the existing timeslot. It's better to recalibrate and let your mind actually shift between two tasks.
If a task takes longer than 45 minutes, your timer goes off and you aren’t done, no big deal! It’s a good lesson in calibrating your effort estimates. Just split it into two tasks, and adjust accordingly.
You can’t fail unless you fail to learn. Failing Forward is still progress!
There's a saying amongst the elite military operators (seals, delta, berets, etc…): slow is smooth, smooth is fast, and fast is deadly. If some of the most productive, efficient, and capable people in the world say that going slow is most effective, it might be worth considering moving with intention, staying focus, and taking that break!
Don't skip the rest! You might be tempted to stay in the flow state and keep going (and if you're doing a creative task like writing or if you really feel like you're not burning through your capacity, then by all means evaluate on a case by case basis). But staying in that flow state can lead to over using our capacity and resulting in burnout that can then decrease the motivation for the next effort or even end the efforts for the rest of the day or longer! Managing burnout against productivity is imperative to long-term longevity which ultimately translates to more actual productivity. It may feel counterintuitive, but taking breaks can actually help you get more done.
In those breaks, I recommend doing a recalibration exercise. One version is to look at something really close to your face, like your fingerprints and then to look out the window and find the furthest object you can possibly focus on, and then look at your fingertips again. This recalibrate your visual range, which helps recalibrate your mind. Another version of this is to stick your fingers in your ears and listen to your heartbeat and your blood flow, then try to listen for the furthest thing away from you or the quietest thing that you can possibly hear. Once you've done the recalibration, then take a sip of water and check in with yourself to ask how much capacity you really have. It can be helpful to look at what you have already accomplished and to take a small moment of celebration for what has gotten done. If you've completed your minimum reasonable expectation, than anything past, that is considered a bonus and is worthy of extra celebration!
Over time, your capacity will improve. This means more pebbles each day. That means more done each day, more boulders moved more regularly, more mountains moved over time! It’s a process, and its one that improves with use.
✅ Cross It Off (Yes, physically, or at least digitally)
Every time you cross something off, you’re doing more than just completing a task, you’re training your brain. You’re showing yourself that you are someone who takes action, who follows through, who gets things done. And that builds trust. You are building a new identity, stone by stone, task by task. Each choice to act is a vote for that person you are choosing to become.
Celebrate. Yes, even the little stuff. Especially the little stuff. Celebration increases dopamine in the moment, improving continued motivation, and drive to complete the next task. We feel a boost from the task, and that makes us want to complete another. We’re chasing little hits of accomplishment. Dopamine is addictive, use this to your advantage! At the end of the day, review your list. Seeing all those completed tasks releases serotonin, creating a sense of satisfaction, which improves rest and recovery. It also helps to reset the addictive dopamine seeking behavior, which reinforces that we are leaving a period of work and entering a period of rest. This makes you ready, and maybe even excited, to do it all again the next day. Celebration makes it all feel like less of an endless grind and shows your brain that yes, it all adds up and you are going somewhere. It reinforces and counts that votes for who you are becoming.
Cross off your tasks, and at the end of the day, cross off the list, and throw it in the trash. Done and dusted.
At the end of the week, look back at your crossed-off graveyard of tasks. It’s proof that you are indeed moving the mountain. And more importantly, that it’s working. You are actually moving that mountain, stone by stone.
💡 Bonus Wisdom
If at any point you feel stuck, foggy, or overwhelmed, ask for help. Have someone sit with you, listen to your list, and help sort the stones. You don’t have to build your system alone. You can ask for a remote accountability buddy, a sit-in co-regulating coworker, or even someone to directly help you sort things out. Body doubling works, and co-regulation is a thing. Just make sure that your accountability resources don’t turn into distractions.
And most importantly, remember:
If you take more off the mountain than you add to it, that’s a win for the day. It’s not about perfection. It’s about consistency. And if you miss, don’t miss twice.
So next time the mountain looms, don’t panic. Break it down. Pick a stone. Move it. Then pick another. And watch that mountain slowly shrink.
You’ve got this. One stone at a time.
Daily Strategy
In closing, here’s an example outline for daily strategy that helps lead to good outcomes.
Aim to complete this 1-3 days a week, eventually moving up to 5 or even 6 days a week as your capacity increases! And, it will. You will end up being able to accomplish more than you ever believed you were capable of, if you use the tools.
Begining of the day ritual
Get all necessary morning tasks out of the way, and take 5 minutes to set a plan for the day.
Take a deep breath, and really assess how much real capacity you have for the day. Are you sick, tired, preoccupied?
Estimate how many pebbles you have, and what your priorities are. What would feel good to complete? What would it mean to you to invest effort into these tasks? You can write bonus goals if you want, but remember to underpromise and overdeliver.
Write the to-do list, starting with “write the to do list” as the first item. It’s an easy cross off that gets the momentum of task completion started.
Get Stuff Done
Now, using the sprint timer technique, start crossing things off.
45 on, 5 to 5 off, with a longer break after 2 efforts.
Add extra if you feel enthusiastic and actually have the energy to do so!
Don’t skip the breaks!
Ending the day ritual
Congrats! You moved a part of a mountain. Take a moment to look at that list, and notice how the completion of these tasks makes you feel. How does it contribute to the story of your capability? Now, draw a big X through the list, and throw it in the trash. A final sysmbolic expression of accomplishment, and a signal to move from work into recovery. This helps reduce burnout, and increase repeatability and resilience! Ultimately, when repeated, it increases capacity.
Good luck!
