On how 'puddle theory' helps me do what I'm putting off
This is a written excerpt of Rest & Recreation, a companion to Routines & Ruts conversations podcast. Each week, host Madeleine Dore shares reflections from previous interviews and interesting reads to offer you a moment of R&R. Listen on Apple iTunes, Spotify and others.
Words by Madeleine Dore
The poet Mary Oliver once wrote, "The most regretful people on earth are those who felt the call to creative work, who felt their own creative power restive and uprising, and gave to it neither power nor time."
Why is it so difficult to give the things that are important to us, the things we want to do, power and time?
Maybe it's something creative, but sort of scary. Maybe it's meaningful, but not urgent. Maybe it's necessary, but a little bit tedious.
It's not uncommon for a creative, meaningful or necessarily task– to fall to the bottom of our to-do list. And there’s a few reasons…
It’s easier to attend to something that has a deadline, than to something limitless and unstructured.
It can seem more pressing to attend to someone else’s needs, wants or demands, than our own personal wishes, pursuits and dreams.
It can be less daunting to attend to the things we feel confident doing, than to the things we are unsure about.
It might be simpler to begin the things that have some semblance of certainty, than to step into the great unknown.
So how do we side-step these blocks, and find focus for the things we want to do, but keep putting off?
A couple of years ago, I started an event series called Side Project Sessions as an experiment and investigation into how to take action in our creative lives.
It was a simple idea—get people in a room together, lay out a nice snack table, ding a little bell, and work in three rounds of 45minutes with breaks in-between to refresh and reset.
But in its simplicity was its effectiveness. So many of us are surrounded by distraction, overwhelm, burnout, busyness, and pressure, and this series provided a space for hundreds of people to carve out just a small pocket of focus and attend to whatever task was important to them in that moment.
At the heart of the method is starting small. Really, really small. For almost all of us, starting small is not only accessible, but it’s what keeps us open to possibility.
As comedian Tim Minchin puts it in this commencement speech:
“I never really had one of these big dreams. And so I advocate passionate dedication to the pursuit of short-term goals. Be micro-ambitious. Put your head down and work with pride on whatever is in front of you… you never know where you might end up. Just be aware that the next worthy pursuit will probably appear in your periphery. Which is why you should be careful of long-term dreams. If you focus too far in front of you, you won’t see the shiny thing out the corner of your eye.”
Starting small and being micro-ambitious not only allows you to notice what’s on the periphery, but it also limits overwhelm or the indecision regarding where to begin when it comes to doing the things we want to do.
But it’s common for us to fixate on the whole. We can often feel overwhelmed by the sheer amount of work involved in a project, the grandness of our ambitions, or the ever-expanding nature of our to-do lists.
So how can we find where to begin, let alone keep up?
Thinking about everything we have to do all at once can leave us feeling stuck and stifled. We are looking at our to-do list like it’s a tidal wave, making it impossible to wade through it.
The antidote? Something I like to call puddle theory—a way to divide overwhelming tasks and take things smallest step by smallest step. Instead of contemplating the insurmountable tidal wave, create tiny puddles that are feasible to step into, making it easier to begin.
Why I’m so fond of puddle theory is that it’s inherently playful. Taking action has a lot to do with how enjoyable and possible we find a task—and being curious about what’s in front of us.
Splashing about in one puddle may lead us unexpectedly to another. This is a helpful reminder that it doesn’t matter so much about where we start, but the act of starting. The other puddles aren’t going anywhere. In other words, focus on taking the first small step and the rest will follow. In the words of David Carr:
“Don't worry about the plot to take over the world. Just do what is in front of you, and do it well.”
Another important note about puddle theory is that it helps us recognise that sometimes one task is actually several in disguise.
There are many ways to form puddles in order to sidestep perfectionism, overwhelm or even procrastination. For me, I like to make a list of my tasks, and then break them into the smallest tasks possible. Then I like to assign them to small pockets of time, typically 45 minutes, to step into the puddle. It’s important to tell myself only to focus on one puddle at a time, and be open to what happens next.
I’ll often spend some time each week prioritising my puddles. This is a method I go into more detail in a guided workbook I created called Time, Space and Quiet, but if perhaps you’d like to follow along now.
Start by describing the thing you want to be doing – or the overwhelming tidal wave.
List all the associated tasks and steps that make up the tidal wave.
Can you break those tasks into even smaller puddles?
Now that you have your tiny puddles, it’s time to prioritise. Try ranking the puddles from most important to least.
Then, looking at your list, maybe you’d like to pick some puddles to work on this week—pick a time in your calendar, be it just an hour or a full three hour session, and allocate a task or puddle for each 45-minute session.
You might look at your list and think, but I can do more or work longer than 45-minutes. Maybe, but often we think we can achieve much more in a given time frame than what's what’s possible. This can lead to feelings of productivity-guilt when we don’t meet our own unrealistic expectations.
Picking no more than three small tasks to complete in a given session helps to minimise overwhelm and inspire you to get started—and keep going.
Best to start small than not at all—and be surprised by how many puddles you do get through.
Another key to puddle theory is to take a break between puddles to refresh and sustain momentum—after all, we all need a chance to dry off! With all meaningful, creative and necessary work we need to embrace the ebb and flow.
There will be moments of focus and concentration, and moments of inevitable distraction, stuckness and stillness. We have to breathe in, in order to breathe out.
It's sort of like being a sponge. Sometimes you need to do nothing but absorb inspiration. But you can’t sit and absorb too long or it soon becomes inertia. So, like a sponge, you also need the squeeze—you need the doing, the action, the outpouring of inspiration.
Combining focus with rest in these sessions allows us to experiment with absorbing (learning, resting, thinking) and squeezing (taking action and small steps)
Puddle theory, or being micro-ambitious is a practice. We can have a tendency to focus on or try to control the big overwhelming picture, so we have to remember to remind ourselves over and over that late is better than never, nothing will ever be perfect, and we can only take puddle by puddle, step by step.
We may never get to perfect, but bit by bit, micro-goal by micro-goal, puddle by puddle, we wade through what was once overwhelming.