We’ve all heard it before: “You should break your goals into small, manageable subtasks.”
It sounds logical, even professional. But today, I want to make a case against subtasks—and hopefully liberate you from this time-consuming yet completely ineffective habit.
At the end of this post, I’ll show you what I’ve been doing instead: a simple system I’ve created from my experience working in tech startups that helps me make progress on my goals every single month without falling into endless research rabbit hole.
1. You are not an SP500 company.
The idea of breaking goals into subtasks comes from the corporate world—big organizations with big budgets.
In those environments, detailed planning makes sense. When you’re managing multi-million-dollar projects, you need quotes, approvals, and timelines. But when it comes to personal or creative projects, that logic doesn’t apply.
You’re not writing proposals or doing the same project on repeat. Most of the time, we are trying to achieve something we’ve never achieved before. That’s why it’s exciting. You’re doing something new, uncertain, and unpredictable.
If you want a better model, don’t look at bureaucracies. Look at teams that are building something new from scratch. Most of them use Agile, a framework that embraces uncertainty and adapts along the way.
That’s why Agile works so well for personal projects. It’s flexible, fast, and forgiving—everything subtasks aren’t.
2. The Illusion of the Perfect Plan
We love to believe that with enough planning, we can create the perfect roadmap and just execute it.
But the truth is simple: the perfect plan doesn’t exist.
Every day brings new information and surprises. You’ll never know everything upfront—and you don’t need to.
We also tell ourselves, “Planning only takes a little time, but it saves time later.”
Be honest: when was the last time your “quick planning session” didn’t turn into hours of Googling, researching, and second-guessing?
I’ve seen it countless times with clients. They start a new project, spend a month “researching,” and end up more confused than when they began. Instead of clarity, they find overwhelm. That’s why I banned “research” as a goal in my coaching. You don’t need a perfect plan to start—you just need to start.
The feedback that you get from doing is highly relevant and applicable to what you are trying to do. You can use all of it and see immediate improvements. The stuff that you learn on the internet when doing passive research is mostly irrelevant to your project, timing and market. It’s mostly noise, not signal.
3. Subtasks Won’t Make Achieving Your Goal Faster
One of the biggest myths for subtasks is that they make achieving our goal faster. In reality, they slow us down.
“Everyone has a plan until they’re punched in the mouth.”
Mike Tyson
The same goes for our goals. We create a detailed plan, and within the first week, life will punch us in the mouth. Something will change, break, or take longer than we expected.
And because we’ve invested so much time in planning, we resist adjusting. The famous sunk cost fallacy.
We’ll tell ourself our plan wasn’t good enough—so next time, we’ll need to make it even more detailed. Does it mean that we’ll need to double or triple the time spent on passive research and planning? When will we have the time to actually do the thing?
Agile offers a better approach: assume things will go wrong, plan lightly, and adjust quickly.
One hour of planning is more than enough for the next sprint. Then, start doing.
4. Why Subtasks Actually Increase Overwhelm
Another common argument for breaking things down into subtasks is that it reduces overwhelm. Unfortunately, the opposite is true.
Imagine your wall—or your favourite productivity app—filled with dozens of colour-coded subtasks. That list is looooooong. You open it Monday morning, coffee in hand, and feel an instant wave of dread. Personally, all I want to do is run away from that list, not jump into doing the first task on it.
That’s not motivation. That’s overwhelm.
A good productivity system should reduce the perceived effort of doing the work, not make it worse.
That’s why I limit myself to just two (sometimes three) goals in progress at a time.
When you only see what’s relevant today, you stay calm, focused, and productive.
5. What Works Better Than Subtasks
Here’s my simple alternative to subtasks—and what I recommend to everyone I coach:
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Spend no more than 1 hour planning your sprint.
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Choose a few key goals for the next 2-3 weeks (your sprint).
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Define “done.” What does success look like in concrete terms? What do you want to see on the last day of the sprint? (“Video uploaded,” “Taxes filed,” “Paper submitted.”) (Learn more about the Definition of Done here, here and here.)
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Limit your work-in-progress to 2 goals at a time.
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Plan only 24 hours ahead. Every night, ask yourself: “What can I do in the next 24 hours to move closer to my definition of done?” (Learn more about the daily standup here and here.)
That’s it. Subtasks exist only for the next 24 hours—never beyond.
You don’t predefine the whole journey. You discover it as you go.
Because clarity doesn’t come from research. It comes from action.
What this looks like in real life
One of the reasons subtasks fail is that people don’t have good examples of what a well-scoped sprint goal looks like.
I put together a free, living guide with 50+ real sprint goal examples, each paired with a clear Definition of Done — all drawn from my own sprints and the sprints of people I work with.
If seeing concrete examples helps you learn, you can download it here: 50+ Real Sprint Goal Examples (with Definitions of Done).
6. Pulling the Thread or Driving at Night: Better Metaphors for Progress
Think of your project as a tangled ball of thread. You can’t see the entire path. The only way to untangle it is to find one loose end and start pulling—one inch at a time.
Each inch reveals what to do next. That’s your daily stand-up.
Another metaphor: driving at night. Your headlights only show a short distance ahead, but it’s enough to keep going. You don’t need to see the whole highway to reach your destination.
When you work against subtasks and instead focus on short, adaptive progress, you’re essentially driving with your headlights on—making the best decisions with the clearest information available.
7. The Benefits of Ditching Subtasks
When you stop breaking goals into tiny pieces, you gain:
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Creative flexibility: You can adapt as you learn.
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Realistic time use: You plan around what’s left in your sprint, not an imaginary timeline.
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Reduced overwhelm: Fewer items on your board = calmer brain.
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Faster completion: Done is better than perfect. Always.
And best of all, your ideas stay alive because you’re actually doing the work instead of perfecting the plan.
