Recently I wrote a damage report for my Xal’atath cosplay. I listed out every piece, what went well and what changes I need to make for the next time. That list feels impossibly long. BlizzCon is five months away. How am I supposed to get this all done?
The Problem
I’m a completionist. If I haven’t completed everything, I don’t feel like I’ve finished or am ready to move on. When I look at a complex outfit like Xal’atath, it feels like I need to complete ALL of it (yes, including the gravity-defying void orbs).
My other challenge is that everything takes longer than I think it does. Have you ever told yourself you were only playing a game for an hour but it was actually three? Yup, that happens to me too. What seems like it won’t take long actually takes much longer.
The Matrix
I’m using a method where I sort tasks by how easy they are and how essential to the character they are. This is inspired by the Impact Effort Matrix. My version places essential items closer to the top of the matrix (think quadrants 1 and 2 from algebra) and easier tasks on the positive side of the X-axis (quadrants 1 and 4).
Each item will fall in one of these quadrants: essential and easy, essential and challenging, optional and easy, optional and challenging.
Step 1: List out all your tasks
I created a list and put them on to virtual sticky notes on Miro. You could also do this with real Post-it notes. There’s no order or organization, the key is to dump everything here.
These tasks come straight from the items listed in my Xal’atath damage report, where I identified essential fixes and opportunities for improvements. This is a wishlist; I included everything I could possibly want.
The colors don’t actually mean anything, they just make it more fun.
Step 2: Sort into quadrants
While the sticky notes are pretty, seeing a big list like this can be overwhelming. Next I dropped them into their respective quadrants. Don’t worry about where in the quadrant they go; that comes later.
Don’t think about it, just drop them in.
Step 3: Position within the quadrants
I started by sorting a quadrant from easier to harder. Since many of them feel equally important, I wasn’t too concerned with having everything perfectly aligned with each other.
I also grouped together tasks that were similar, things that I could work on simultaneously. This helped make it feel like there was less to do.
I took a little more time here to group related tasks together.
Processing it all
Looking at everything laid out like this, it still feels like a lot. But it does help highlight which tasks are both important and doable.
Blizzcon is five months away. I made the entire cosplay in about 5-6 months the first time, so logically this should be doable. But somehow this list makes it feel like I’m starting over—and I won’t even end up with a completely new cosplay out of it.
And then there’s the milestone requirement. I need to be 25% done at the time of my application on May 15. Part of me looks at this and thinks, “there’s no way.” But that doesn’t really make sense either. I already built this cosplay once, from nothing. By that logic, I’ve already more than hit that 25% mark.
This is where my sense of time gets weird. Things either feel like they’ll take no time at all (“I can totally finish that in an afternoon”), or they’ll drag on for weeks (like making a new corset, even though I finished the last one days before the con).
If I’m accepted, there’s another requirement: I need to be 80% done by August 1, which is six weeks before BlizzCon. That’s very different from how I usually work. Normally, a lot of the build happens in the final few weeks leading up to a con. That last stretch is where everything comes together.
This shifts that timeline forward. Instead of relying on that final push, most of the work needs to be done much earlier. That’s part of why I’m doing this now, so I don’t end up relying on that last-minute push to carry the entire build.
Instead of trying to solve the scheduling problem now, I’m just going to leave this here.
This matrix isn’t the plan. It’s just a way to see what I’m working with.
What’s Next
There’s no timeline yet, and that’s intentional. Breaking the project into discrete steps makes it feel less overwhelming. And more doable.
The next step is to take this and turn it into something more concrete. What actually needs to be done before the application? What can wait? What gets cut if I run out of time?
Honestly, I can probably submit the application after the next post.