In business, school, and life, people are faced with complex tasks.  When faced with a complex task, it is important to have a game plan.  Often, people are frustrated because they try to deal with the complex task at that level.  What can they do instead?

The best approach is to break the task down into smaller pieces that they can deal with. 

Last week, a student complained that she had been given too much information to understand a task.  After explaining that she needed to learn to deal with such situations, the student said that everyone was telling her this.  It seemed to me that she needed a little more guidance so I suggested that she sit down with the instructions that she had been given, a writing tablet, and a pen and take the following actions: 

Step 1.  Read each sentence and decide what is required by that sentence.

Step 2.  Write down what she needs to do to comply with that instruction.

Step 3.  Repeat the instructions for each sentence of the instructions.

Step 4.  Arrange the tasks in a logical order.

Step 5.  Execute the steps and mark each step off the list as the step is completed.

If when she breaks down a sentence she still does not understand that sentence, she should break it down into even smaller pieces until she does understand what is required.

This approach is very simple.  I used to think that it was so simple that saying it would offend people.  In many instances, people struggle with issues like this.  Rather than doing things for people, it seems to me that a better solution is to help them learn to do things for themselves. 

Filed by Coleen Davis at 1:24 pm under Solving Problems, Tips for Students