“If you want an easy job to seem mighty hard, just keep putting if off.” —Richard Miller
Have you ever had a job you were putting off doing, only to find it was so much quicker to clear once you got down to it? Putting a task off just makes it seem so much harder.
It might be a task you ‘think’ is going to take ages. In your mind it is going to take at least half a day – and when are you going to get that much free time to start it!
Perhaps it is something you don’t enjoy doing, so you procrastinate over it for a few days, or even a few weeks.
Maybe it is a task you are not sure you have the skill to do well, or the perfectionist in you assumes it won’t be good enough.
Yet once the deadline and urgency means you can’t put it off any longer, you find it wasn’t so bad after all – it only took you a few minutes or an hour or so. Nowhere near the days it took you to stress about it.
Whatever it is that is stopping you from getting on with the task, putting it off is never going to make it any easier or quicker to do. Quite the opposite in fact.
So, what can you do about it?
In Brian Tracy’s book ‘Eat that frog’, he suggests getting to worst thing out of the way first. Have a think about what you are likely to put off (your worse task) and start with that. The momentum of having got that one out of the way will help the rest of the day.
Another way is to just give it 10 minutes. Even if you think it is going to take hours, make a start on the first few minutes. Once you have started you may find that it wasn’t so bad after all, and finish the task sooner than you think – or just give it the allotted 10 mins and stop. At least you have made a start – try another 10 minutes tomorrow and gradually shave it down to size.
Or just break it down to the smallest possible step, and then do it. Perhaps it won’t be nearly as onerous as you think, and the relief of having got it done will be a boost to the day – certainly better than trying to ignore the constant tap on the shoulder of a troublesome task.
So what task is taking up WAY too much of your mind space?
Let us know below and get it done today.