Get Your Ducks In Order: A Visual Exercise to Start the Year Strong!
As we dive into January, many of us have a head full of goals, projects, and tasks we want to tackle. But how do we go from having too much in our heads to feeling clear, focused, and ready to take action?
Enter: Getting Your Ducks in Order—a simple, visual method to organize your thoughts, prioritize your tasks, and break things down into manageable steps.
Getting Your Ducks in Order
Step 1: Get some ducks….
Step 1: Brain Dump
Start by getting all your ideas, tasks, and projects out of your head and onto a piece of paper—or use a digital tool like Mural or Miro with digital Post-it notes.
Write down everything:
Big tasks
Small tasks
Things you want to do
Things you need to do
The goal here is to clear your mental space. Don’t worry about organizing or categorizing at this stage—just dump everything onto the page.
*We've used a digital whiteboard to show the process here but it can be done physically with a pen, paper and post it notes.
Step 2: Prioritize
Now that you’ve got everything out of your head, it’s time to organize it. We’re going to use a simple pyramid (triangle)to prioritize tasks.
How It Works:
Start by placing all tasks at the middle level of the pyramid. This gives you a neutral starting point.
Go through each task and decide if it’s of higher priority (move it up) or lower priority (move it down).
Adjust as you go until the pyramid reflects your priorities, with the most important tasks at the top and the least important at the bottom.
By the end, you’ll have a clear visual of your highest-priority tasks at the top and lower-priority ones further down.
Step 3: Break It Down
Take your top-priority task and break it into smaller, manageable steps using a mountain template.
How It Works:
Draw a mountain (a triangle will do!) with a flag at the top to represent your big task or goal.
Break the task into smaller steps and place them along the mountain.
The smaller the steps, the better—it helps you feel progress and stay motivated.
Track Your Progress:
Color-code tasks: Start with all tasks in orange and change them to green as they’re completed. This provides a clear sense of momentum.
If you're interested in our thinking behind how we create exercises and flows like this - check out our basics course.
