Schedule in those hateful tasks
(www.myorganizedbiz.com) – I have been reading Organize Your Office In No Time by Monica Ricci, which I will review when I’m done and then give away my review copy.
Something she said towards the beginning of the book stuck with me today. Do you have tasks that you forget to do? Frequently — or even all the time? And does it just so happen that those are the tasks that you hate doing?
That’s probably not a coincidence. Ricci suggests just going ahead and scheduling that task on your calendar so you’ll be reminded that it must be done. In fact, go ahead and set a recurring appointment for however frequently you need to be doing that task. Monthly, bi-weekly, etc.
But let’s go one better on that. If you truly hate doing certain tasks, why don’t you delegate them? If you have employees, have one of them take care of it for you. If not, think about how an assistant – even a virtual one – can help.
If it’s something only you can do, or should do, then maybe you can delegate something else to make room for it. And make yourself accountable somehow. Try telling a trusted colleague, and ask them to check back with you to make sure you’ve gotten it done. After one or two reminders, maybe you won’t want the embarrassment of saying you didn’t complete your mission. And that can be incentive enough to do the task.
Everyone is motivated differently. So figure out what helps you be accountable to yourself and do it. Whether it’s a calendar reminder, or a friend checking in, or even rewarding yourself for actually getting it done (rather than forgetting or putting it off again), find something to motivate yourself. And get hose hateful tasks out of the way so you can move on to the more important (or less irritating) tasks.
2 Comments
I soooo need to soak this post up and take it to heart! I have filing I need to do…seriously. Paper is piling up and it’s ugly.
Delegating it to my 4 year old or my husband is basically out of the question if I ever want to find anything again.
But I love the idea of rewarding myself. A pedicure after a filing day sounds nice!
Yeah, there are some things I can’t delegate either. However, I’m seriously thinking of letting my (older) daughter scan receipts and stuff for me. She’s dying to play with the scanner. That’s a big if, though, because she has to do it the way I want it done so I can FIND the receipts later.