Speaker 1: Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Good Morning. This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast.
Speaker 2: Today's tip is to finish the job. Once you have
Speaker 2: already picked something up, it often just takes a few
Speaker 2: extra seconds to completely deal with it. While in general
Speaker 2: it is good to batch the little things. If you
Speaker 2: have already taken the first few steps toward action, you
Speaker 2: might as well get to done. Today's tip is inspired
Speaker 2: by listener jac who wrote in with a suggestion about
Speaker 2: that common adage touch it once. She notes that early
Speaker 2: in my career I learned the touch it once rule
Speaker 2: when it came to filing in paperwork. That is, you
Speaker 2: should deal with a document once and be done with it.
Speaker 2: That's all fine for but JC noted that I found
Speaker 2: that it can apply to a variety of quick tasks
Speaker 2: at work and at home. The idea is that once
Speaker 2: you touch a dirty dish or an object out of place,
Speaker 2: deal with it so you don't have to come back
Speaker 2: to it now. As with everything, there is a caveat here.
Speaker 2: In general, I believe in batching the little things. That
Speaker 2: is actually tranquility by Tuesday rule number eight. For my
Speaker 2: most recent book, don't pay bills as you get them,
Speaker 2: pay them in one fell swoop at a low energy time.
Speaker 2: Respond to all your low priority emails at once rather
Speaker 2: than as you get them, because if you respond to
Speaker 2: them as you get them, you will basically never do
Speaker 2: anything else. That said, once you've engaged in a process halfway,
Speaker 2: say you have pulled out your checkbook to start paying
Speaker 2: a paper bill, it would make no sense to stop
Speaker 2: after writing the check before putting it in the envelope.
Speaker 2: You'll just have to take another minute later to finish
Speaker 2: the job. So better get it stamped and ready to
Speaker 2: go out the door. Now it seems obvious, but we
Speaker 2: often make more work for ourselves by not following through
Speaker 2: the Other day, I found some art supplies in the
Speaker 2: wrong place in the house. I carried them all the
Speaker 2: way up the stairs to the closet where we keep
Speaker 2: such things. Then I put them down outside the closet door.
Speaker 2: As I look back on this, now, this doesn't make
Speaker 2: a whole lot of sense. It would have taken maybe
Speaker 2: ten seconds maybe less to open the door and chuck
Speaker 2: the supplies in there. But instead of doing that ten
Speaker 2: second task, I left the supplies out in the hallway.
Speaker 2: Even though that risked some little person in my household
Speaker 2: moving them to the wrong place again, or somebody tripping
Speaker 2: over them, or who knows what. Maybe I was hoping
Speaker 2: that someone else would take the ten seconds to put
Speaker 2: them away so I wouldn't have had to devote the
Speaker 2: ten seconds to moving them. But sadly, the most likely
Speaker 2: outcome is that this wasn't going to happen, and so
Speaker 2: when I was next up there, I would eventually have
Speaker 2: to get around to putting them in the closet. Better
Speaker 2: to finish the job the first time, So the next
Speaker 2: time you start a job, think about how you can
Speaker 2: finish it. I recently read a decluttering book where the
Speaker 2: author pointed out that disorganized people create all sorts of
Speaker 2: piles while decluttering, and so the room never winds up
Speaker 2: looking much better. The author recommended actually carrying misplaced objects
Speaker 2: to where they go immediately. Is this efficient? Well? Probably not.
Speaker 2: There may be six toys in the kitchen that have
Speaker 2: to go to a kid's bedroom, and if you do
Speaker 2: see a handful, grab them all before you go. But
Speaker 2: the problem with making a pile to go up is
Speaker 2: that the pile may still be sitting there a week later,
Speaker 2: and it feels like you are making no progress. Better
Speaker 2: to make two to three trips to the room and
Speaker 2: actually have the kitchen start to look better. Most of
Speaker 2: us need more steps in activity these days. Anyway, finish
Speaker 2: the job and you can in fact be finished. That
Speaker 2: is better than constantly living somewhere around halfway done. In
Speaker 2: the meantime, this is Laura. Thanks for listening, and here's
Speaker 2: to making the most of our time.
Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, I'd love to hear from you. You can
Speaker 1: send me your tips, your questions, or anything else. Just
Speaker 1: connect with me on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram at Before
Speaker 1: Breakfast that's b E the number four, then breakfast pod.
Speaker 1: You can also shoot me an email at Before Breakfast
Speaker 1: Podcasts at iHeartMedia dot com.
Speaker 2: That before Breakfast is spelled out with all the letters.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much. Should I look forward to staying in touch.
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