Overwhelmed with too many tasks?
Do you have 10 or even 5 resource-intensive things in your to do list for a day? If yes, this blog for you. I write this, as always, as a note to myself on struggles I have faced and things that have worked for me.
By ‘resource intensive’ I mean things that needs high motivation, the things that you have been postponing, or requires high focus for a prolonged period (60 mins or more). It could be that blog that you have to submit to the marketing team at work which you have been postponing, or it could be the workout that you want to do everyday, or that conversation you need to have with someone which you have been putting off.
The problems with having so many resource-intensive items in your todo list for a day is that, firstly, it is highly unlikely you will do all of them and incomplete tasks at the end of the day will only lead to regret. Secondly, it also gives you a way out when your brain is looking for an excuse to not do the toughest task - you could always say ‘because I did so many other things, I couldn’t do this task’, that leads to you never addressing the tasks that could matter more than anything else.
The thing that worked for me:
Have only 1 or 2 resource-intensive tasks in a day. Usually, these are work related things for me. I block out two chunks of 90 mins each in my work calendar for focus work. I block these in advance, meaning, I block these for a year. So everyday in my calendar, for a year, I will have these blocks of time. When I am planning my week, I go to these slots and add specifically which item I am going to do at that time and in the description I add the link to the page or slack message which are part of the task. This way you can get ~10 impactful things done in a week. That would be a great week.
Do the resource intensive things as the first things in the morning. Your brain is fresh from a good night’s rest and that is the best time to work on those things that you have put off. I read this concept about ‘ego depletion’ from ‘thinking, fast and slow’.
Plan beforehand, as mentioned in point 1. Instead of starting the day with planning (resource intensive), try to start the week with this. So that the overhead of planning is now moved to once a week and not every day of the week. Sometime I do the planning for the next week, at the end of the previous week, if I have a slow Friday.
Hope this helps.
I totally agree. I split my day into two halves. And assign one major task to each half. And that's all I can do for that day.