Bird by bird, step by step, problem by problem

Solve one problem, then the next, then the next...

I was lucky enough to dive the Great Barrier Reef a couple of years ago—a bucket list sort of thing! It is at risk of collapse—one of those seemingly insurmountable problems. Photo by Francesco Ungaro on Unsplash

In The Martian, Mark Watney, stranded on Mars, faces an impossible situation. He has no way home, limited resources, and a planet completely hostile to human life. But instead of being overwhelmed by the enormity of his situation, Watney (played by Matt Damon in the movie) famously decides to "science the shit out of this."

His approach? Don't solve the impossible problem of his survival all at once. Break it down. Solve one problem, then the next one, then the next. Until the impossible becomes possible.

Anne Lamott describes a similar approach to writing. In her book Bird by Bird, she describes the situation when her ten year old brother had procrastinated for months on a school report about birds that was due the next day. He sat at the kitchen table surrounded by unopened books on birds, frozen by panic and overwhelm at the massive task before him. Their father sat down beside him and gave him this simple advice: "Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird.”

We've all been there! Heck, I'm still there on a weekly basis with seemingly impossible deadlines. And I use this lesson with my students regularly—PhD theses can be big overwhelming things in full—to help break the overwhelming into the manageable.

This lesson feels especially relevant in the context of the global polycrisis. Biodiversity loss, climate change, water scarcity. These crises are vast, urgent, and intertwined. It’s easy to feel paralysed by their scale, overwhelmed by their complexity, but also to wonder whether our actions will ever be worthwhile. Whether individual or incremental actions can ever make a difference. In an ideal world, we’d redesign our entire systems, whether political, economic, social, or environmental, to live in balance with nature and meet the challenges of the polycrisis. But sometimes the only way forward is the way Watney took: one problem at a time.

We're confronted with endless bad environmental news. We see footage of forests being cleared at unimaginable scales. We see the Great Barrier Reef dying. It's understandable that we’re overwhelmed. We're burnt out by the scale of the issues.

But Lamott reminds us that paralysis comes from trying to tackle too much at once. Progress, by contrast, comes from narrowing your focus to what’s right in front of you. Finish one thing. Then the next. Keep going.