When a project only gets bigger and bigger

trebor75...

i'd like to offer a few thoughts a little different from what you might normally hear.

when i was in college, i had a double major of government and psychology. i thought that i was going to go into psychology as a profession. i ended up going to law school, but my psychology studies ended up being much more helpful in life than what i thought as a young college student.

so here's the deal...

i've worked on cars since i was 15. when i was very young, i used to tear things apart and end up with a lot of parts sitting in front of me and either not knowing how to put the thing back together or was just overwhelmed with all the parts.

i often see collector cars for sale being listed as "will never get done" or "lost interest" or "more work than i thought" - stuff like that. unless a person has a regular shop with several employees or has several "friends" that are willing to spend their weekends in your garage helping you work on your car, there is a real DANGER in a car buff starting on rebuilding their car by "tearing it completely apart." i know there are many FABO readers that will argue with me but i firmly believe a single car nut should NEVER take their car completely apart resulting in a mass pile of parts in their garage and a stripped body shell sitting on casters or blocks. why? why is this "a danger?"

the human mind can get "overwhelmed" fairly easily. not only does it take a lot of work to fully disassemble a car, the NEXT DAY when you walk into your garage, you are going to be faced with SCORES of things that "need to be done." at that moment, it can be VERY difficult to determine even "where to start."

i restored one of my barracudas completely by myself. when i started, the car needed body work; repainted; interior replaced; engine work and lots of other "small things" to make it the car i wanted. i knew that i DID NOT want to take this car apart. i KNEW that if i did that - I WOULD NOT BE ABLE TO HANDLE THE STRESS of having SO MANY things to do at once.

when i started on my car, i set very small goals. since i was going to repaint the car, i started with taking the two doors off and working on refinishing the door jams. and for that small goal, i allowed myself a full week to do each side. that way i didn't feel a lot of pressure in time or the extent of work needing to be done. after the door jams were in primer, i went to the trunk area; after the trunk, i started on the engine bay. when the engine bay was done, i started on the body itself doing each quarter panel at a time, then the doors, then the front fenders and hood. after a couple of months working a little bit at a time on each of these body areas, i had the car ready to paint. now i used "old fashioned" laquer paint and was able to paint all of the body in separate sprays - except the top and quarter panels which i sprayed all at once. when i was done with the outside of the car, i started on the interior doing a little at a time.

the point i'm trying to make is that you are faced with a LOT of work that needs to be done on your car and you are feeling overwhelmed. that is where the "psychology" comes in - you have to "reset" your mind and "trick it" into thinking the work on your car is "not that much." now HOW do you do that?

here's the secret to solving your problem: pick ONE thing that needs to be done. make that choice a simple and quick task - something that can be accomplished in a week. when you start on this choice, DO NOT think about ANYTHING ELSE that needs to be done!! keep FOCUSED on that single task. when you finish this task, take a day and admire what you have accomplished! THIS STEP IS IMPORTANT!! you have to allow your mind to believe that you are "making progress" on you car!! in the psych. world, this component is called "immediate gratification." the mind needs to be "reinforced" in the view that "progress is being made." but here's the real "majic" in the process i'm describing: if you concentrate on simple tasks that can be accomplished in a week or less AND continue to move forward each week with "just simple tasks", within a month or two, you will see MAJOR PROGRESS on your car!! and you will not even be able to explain HOW you managed to get so much done!!

the only way humans can accomplish big tasks is to break them down into "small tasks" and then keep "chipping away" at all the "small tasks." the procedure i've described will work on ANY big task that you are faced with in life. as to your car, just try what i'm suggesting for a couple of weeks. concentrate on ONE task per week and then ENJOY what you have accomplished at the end of each week.

you have any number of things you can start with. pick ONE - then spend the next week on JUST THAT ITEM.

good luck!!