You've probably heard it before: when faced with a massive task, someone will inevitably try to motivate you with the famous phrase, "You eat an elephant one bite at a time."
But here's the thing—I call b.s. on this metaphor. While it sounds comforting, it falls apart when applied to truly big, daunting tasks. We're not talking about something you can knock out in a day or two; we're talking about multi-week, month, or even year-long projects. The "eating an elephant" metaphor isn't just unhelpful for such projects—it actually highlights the problems with tackling them "one bite at a time."
Let's break it down. An average male African elephant weighs around 6,000 kilograms (13,227 pounds). A typical bite of food might weigh about 15 grams (0.033 pounds)—roughly the size of a small piece of steak. So, we're talking about 400,000 bites to eat the entire elephant.
Now, if each meal consists of 50 bites, it would take 8,000 meals to finish the elephant. At three meals a day, that's 2,700 days, or 7.3 years, of eating nothing but elephant for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. That’s an overwhelming thought.
The trouble is, when people use the "eat an elephant a bite at a time" expression, they imply that you can tackle a huge project by doing a little bit here and there, fitting it in with everything else going on in your life. "Just get started," they say, "do a little bit whenever you have time, and you'll eventually get it done." But that works for a 20 oz. steak, not for an elephant.
Now, imagine if you only ate elephant for dinner. That would stretch the timeline to 22 years. And if only a third of your dinner was elephant, with the rest being mashed potatoes and salad, now we're talking 66 years.
Are you really going to keep an elephant carcass around for 66 years, slowly chipping away at it? Probably not. Even if you froze it, would you still want to eat 66-year-old elephant meat? And think about the logistics: the size of the freezer you'd need, the hassle of thawing it every time you wanted a few bites. It's ridiculous.
But here's the thing—this metaphor, despite its flaws, does have its place in certain contexts. It’s also used to emphasize the importance of breaking down overwhelming tasks into smaller, manageable parts, and this approach can be effective. However, for large, complex projects, the metaphor oversimplifies the reality of what’s required.
For truly big endeavors, the "one bite at a time" approach often leads to a slow, sporadic progress that doesn’t account for the psychological and practical challenges involved. Big projects have an expiration date—after 66 years, that book, app, or video game you’re working on might not be relevant anymore. They also take up mental space and add a cognitive load. Constantly switching back and forth between tasks comes with significant costs, making it harder to maintain momentum.
You'll find plenty of advice urging you to "finish something," and it's true—completing a project has enormous benefits. But the odds of finishing something substantial by just taking a bite here and there, mixed in with your other tasks, are slim.
So, how do you eat an elephant? You clear the kitchen. Get rid of the ice cream, pizza, and cucumbers—anything that isn't elephant. You focus. You put your head down and eat elephant all day, every day, until it's done.
Sometimes the only way forward is full immersion, intense focus, and a relentless commitment to the task at hand. Just remember to chew between bites.
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