respecting the natural cycle.

things i have not done for far too long that i vanquished today: entering the past month and a half into my quicken, paying my backlog of parking tickets, getting a doctor's order in to the hospital for next level of treatment, and totally cleaning the house.

a heroic day? not really. if these things had been taken care of all along, then they would have been seamlessly integrated into less frantic days. however, i share them to illustrate the essential yucky task rule: do as many as you can all at once in order to feel the maximum relief.

image: ukslim via flickr.

i have long been a proponent of the fact that worrying about something rather than simply doing it uses up far more energy. there is no good reason why these things happen: laundry going undone for six weeks, house unvacuumed for two, trash not taken out until the very last minute and yes, driving into the gas station with 4 miles left to go according to the car's computer. (can you tell that this is my personal list?)

when we take on the job of being boss, employee, crew, finance team, and any other role that a company can have, it is harder to manage time and therefore it is harder to define which days are set aside to get all this hateful stuff taken care of. the lesson: that entrepreneur's time management system i talked about months ago really is the way to go.

the concept of the buffer day is essential since taking care of all of this life stuff takes time. doctor's visits should not be skipped or avoided and plowing through a bunch of e-mail and bills is just as valuable a use of your business time as is doing the service or selling the product you got in business for in the first place. they just shouldn't be happening at the same time or, as dan sullivan of strategic coach, inc. says, on the same day.

making your boundaries and structure clear allows for better results. and as our friend tim ferriss says, the more time we give a task, the longer it will take.

to have a good effective buffer day the next time one comes around for you. try the following:

• make your list reasonable. don't expect to get 1,000 things done in one day. choose no more than five or six, and make them manageable. this will allow you to feel a sense of success.
• give yourself tie constraints for tasks- write down the maximum amount of time you want to take to complete each one. you'll be surprised how this helps you focus in order to meet your goal.
• write your list of tasks down. having to remember what you wanted to do is a prescription for madness. as gina trapani of lifehacker says, your mind is only able to hold a few items in view at once. don't overtax your brain by overloading your mental hand-basket. write it down so you can see it.
• define the end time of your day. doing these often annoying tasks in large chunks will not be a user-friendly method unless you stop as planned. i guarantee that you will not look forward to or make use of good buffer days unless you stop in time to enjoy your evening. no one likes trolling on these things late into the night, so resist the urge to do "just one more" after your finish time once you have momentum going.
• rest or enjoy a treat afterwards. let yourself go out to the movies, enjoy a bath or time with friends as a reward for getting all this off your plate. associating finishing tasks with something fun is a great way to motivate and keep moving ahead!

now- doesn't that feel better?

Comments

[ann]

My new thing?...keeping current with filing. Once I got caught up, I realized it was just as easy to put stuff away as needed as opposed to putting it in the "to be filed" stack. That just creates another task for later. It's worked so far...for about 2 weeks. Yay for me!