Okay, so I wanted to share a bit about this thing I tried out recently, this whole “Erika Krause” approach I kept hearing whispers about. Wasn’t really sure what it was, sounded kinda like another one of those systems people get obsessed with for five minutes.
Honestly, my workflow was feeling a bit messy. Stuff piling up, notes all over the place, you know how it gets. So, I thought, what the heck, let’s give this Erika Krause thing a go. Couldn’t hurt, right? Maybe it’d actually help me get my head straight.
Getting Started with It
First thing I did was try to find some solid info on it. Wasn’t easy, seemed like everyone had a slightly different idea of what “Erika Krause” actually involved. I pieced together what I could from a couple of forum posts and an old blog someone wrote.
So, I started by basically gutting my usual process. The core idea I grabbed onto was this radical simplification thing. I literally took my current project board, digital and physical, and wiped it clean. Felt kinda scary, like throwing out the map mid-journey.
Then, I tried to apply the ‘Krause way’ of prioritizing. It seemed to involve focusing intensely on only one major thing and breaking it down relentlessly, ignoring everything else. Sounded good in theory.
- Step 1: Picked the biggest task that was causing me headaches.
- Step 2: Broke it down into the tiniest possible steps I could think of. Like, super granular.
- Step 3: Put only the very next tiny step on my list. Everything else went into a separate ‘later’ pile.
- Step 4: Tried to just hammer away at that one step until it was done.
How It Actually Went
The first couple of days felt… focused. Intense, even. Getting that one small thing done felt achievable. Progress! But then reality started creeping back in. Other urgent stuff popped up, emails demanding attention, colleagues needing help. This pure “one thing only” approach started to crumble fast.
I found myself spending a lot of mental energy just managing the system, trying to stick to the supposed Erika Krause rules. Deciding what counted as the ‘one thing’, constantly reorganizing the ‘later’ pile, it felt like extra work on top of the actual work.
And honestly? Ignoring everything else just wasn’t practical. Some things need concurrent attention, even if they aren’t the main focus. The system felt too rigid, too idealistic for the messy reality of day-to-day stuff.
My Takeaway
So, did the Erika Krause method revolutionize my life? Nope. Not really. It wasn’t the magic fix I maybe hoped for, deep down.
But, it wasn’t useless either. That exercise of radically simplifying and breaking down tasks? That part was genuinely helpful. I still try to do that more often now, even if I don’t follow the whole rigid system. It forces clarity.
In the end, I realized it’s like any tool or technique. You gotta take the bits that work for you and ditch the rest. Trying the Erika Krause thing forced me to really look at how I work, and even though I didn’t stick with it fully, I learned something from the process. Ended up with a sort of hybrid approach, mixing some of its ideas with my old methods. And that feels more sustainable for me.
