Minitasking – How to Organize Yourself in an Unfamiliar Environment

When I found out I was pregnant and was about to become a first-time parent, I received a flood of advice from seasoned parents about what to expect. Some of it was useful, a few pieces really helped, but honestly, most of it was unwanted 😊. It took me some time to start tuning it out.

One of the most off-the-mark pieces of advice I got was that I would have plenty of spare time once the baby arrived. People told me that newborns sleep up to 18 hours a day, so I should prepare a wishlist of books to read, shows to binge-watch, and generally get ready for an abundance of free time.

In reality, I barely remember having any time to myself during those first few weeks after my son Alex was born. Sure, the baby did sleep a lot, but what many of those advisors left out was that he often napped on me—while nursing, during walks, or even in the car. As a result, I could hardly get anything done during those moments. Whenever he did manage to nap in his crib, I felt like a cartoon character, frantically trying to juggle five or six tasks at once in a mad dash.

After a few weeks, I realized that much of the advice I received was pointless and added to my frustration. Alex’s nap times were almost always short, unless he was being held, so I took a step back and thought about how I could better manage this time. Sometimes I had a mere 20 minutes, other times up to three hours, but I could never tell which it would be.

I started to think in terms of mini tasks—small, manageable actions I could complete within 10 to 20 minutes during a single nap. Most of the time, these were focused on self-care or urgent household chores that needed tackling. However, I also began considering other tasks of lesser priority that still required attention. When a task felt too big for those brief windows, I started breaking it down into smaller steps. Much like the Scrum method, where you divide larger tasks into smaller, more manageable pieces, I learned to split things up. For instance, instead of “cleaning the bathroom,” I tackled it chunk by chunk, addressing the shower, bath, toilet, sink, and floor separately. I started planning out my mini tasks for the day, the week, and even the month. Before long, I felt I was organizing myself much more effectively, and it brought me a sense of pride to feel productive again.

Minitasking can easily translate into the workplace, too—especially for consultants who struggle with estimating their tasks accurately. As a project manager, it can be a nightmare when deadlines are slipping because tasks were initially misjudged or dependencies weren’t communicated during planning.

While I’m not a fan of micromanagement, I understand that some consultants find it challenging to gauge their own workloads, particularly when factoring in the bigger picture—like the availability of colleagues who need to be consulted or other dependencies.

With minitasking, I was able to overcome the frustration of feeling unproductive and instead enjoyed a real sense of accomplishment.