If you look closely, you’ll find that every complex task is made up of a handful of component parts.

Taken whole, the task ahead of you might seem impossible, and you might spend weeks, months, or years stalling as you try to decide which chunk of the elephant to bite off first.

As you zoom in, however, you begin to make out the smaller, more approachable pieces that make up the whole.

The amorphous task of marketing, for example, could be broken down into the following component parts:

1. Audience Identification
2. Research
3. Exposure
4. Connection
5. Trust

When staring down the daunting task of figuring out how to market the work you do, you might initially draw a blank.

But break it down into a series of sub-tasks and a plan begins to come into view.

From our initial marketing breakdown, we can zoom in closer, and the plan becomes even clearer.

1. Audience identification
   1. Decide who you want to work with
   2. Where do your skills and interests overlap with a market need?
2. Research
   1. Talk to your target audience
   2. Hang out in Facebook groups
   3. Read Quora or Reddit posts
3. Exposure
   1. Buy attention
      1. Ads
   2. Borrow attention
      1. Podcast guesting
      2. Collaborating with other creators or businesses
      3. Guest blogging
4. Connection
   1. Speak to your intended audience in a way that addresses their current situation, goals, and challenges.
   2. Embrace the parts of yourself that make you unique.
   3. Develop your personal point of view and perspective.
5. Trust
   1. Nurture your audience with your own pillar content
      1. Podcast
      2. Blog posts
      3. Newsletter
      4. Youtube
      5. Social media

Of course, we could still break down each of these sub-tasks and sub-sub-tasks further still in order to understand how to approach each of them effectively.

The big picture view is essential for establishing your vision and plotting your course.

But if you’re feeling overwhelmed, confused, or intimidated by the scale of the work ahead of you, it’s worth zooming in to the point where the micro-tasks feel manageable.

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