Introduction:

Today’s restaurant operations tip is about project management, specifically – avoiding overwhelm. Sometimes we struggle to finish a project because it feels too big and overwhelming. There’s an expression in project management which is: “How do you eat an elephant?” –  one bite at a time. Eating an entire elephant could be overwhelming but just take one bite at a time.

Break it down:

One of the first things that I want you to do when you’re working on a project that just isn’t getting done is chunk down the project to its smallest parts and pieces.

For example, if you wanted to put together some kitchen build sheets for your restaurant they have a picture of the plate and what it’s going to look like, a server description, menu description, potential allergies, ingredients and quick kitchen assembly instructions. Most people look at their whole menu and all the tasks needed to complete this project and get stuck. They become overwhelmed by the size of the project.

If you break it down to its smallest parts and pieces you can avoid this feeling.

The first part would be to make a list of all of the items that you need build sheets for. Then the next project can be creating an Excel spreadsheet of all the different things that you need to complete each one like a picture of each plate. The next tasks could be actually taking a picture of all the items on your menu, getting the pictures off of your phone and onto your computer and then properly labeling all those pictures.

If you just keep putting in your head saying: “I’m gonna work on build sheets tomorrow” then the project is so big you don’t even know where to start and it becomes overwhelming.

Chunk it down into its smallest parts and pieces and then get to work on those mini tasks.