Speaker 1: Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio. Good Morning.
Speaker 1: This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast. Today's
Speaker 1: tip is to make a list of annoying tasks. By
Speaker 1: keeping track of all the things that you need to
Speaker 1: do but don't particularly want to do, you can motivate
Speaker 1: yourself to make progress, keep these tasks in perspective, and
Speaker 1: hopefully won't miss any deadlines along the way. So I
Speaker 1: was recently feeling a bit weighed down by the volume
Speaker 1: of tasks I knew I needed to tackle at some point.
Speaker 1: Many of these were annoying and multipart. For instance, I
Speaker 1: needed to sign some financial paperwork, which I thought would
Speaker 1: be straightforward, but then I had trouble logging in. I
Speaker 1: had to submit other forms before I could sign things, etc.
Speaker 1: To file a tax report about my retirement account and
Speaker 1: another one about an LLC. I need to update my
Speaker 1: clearances to volunteer at my kids' schools, and so on.
Speaker 1: In many cases, I feel like these systems are needlessly complex.
Speaker 1: They take time that they don't need to. This is
Speaker 1: time that I am not writing, or playing with my kids,
Speaker 1: or doing something fun for me. So all in all,
Speaker 1: things that I find annoying. But in life, it's important
Speaker 1: to recognize when we can change things, because then we
Speaker 1: should try to change things. And when certain things are
Speaker 1: fairly outside our control, I am unlikely to get to
Speaker 1: change the setup that the school system has put in
Speaker 1: place to process volunteer clearances or any of these other things.
Speaker 1: They must simply be dealt with. So to make this
Speaker 1: all feel less onerous, I made a list of all
Speaker 1: the annoying tasks that I know I will need to
Speaker 1: deal with at some point in the near future. My
Speaker 1: first takeaway is that the list wasn't infinite. Now, don't
Speaker 1: get me wrong, it was long, but it wasn't infinite,
Speaker 1: so that was helpful to see. Then I could see
Speaker 1: what had to be done immediately and what didn't. The
Speaker 1: financial paperwork needed to get turned around, but we're out
Speaker 1: of school now and will be for a while, so
Speaker 1: the clearances could be shoved forward. As part of this,
Speaker 1: I could also pace myself by my signing myself one
Speaker 1: annoying task per week. I could muster all of my
Speaker 1: excess energy to deal with that one task. I wasn't
Speaker 1: feeling bad that I didn't file the LLC paperwork one
Speaker 1: week because that was the week I was dealing with
Speaker 1: the retirement account forms. The LLC stuff could happen the
Speaker 1: next week. When you assign yourself only one task per week,
Speaker 1: it has a much higher chance of getting done, or
Speaker 1: at least that's what I have found is true for me.
Speaker 1: I try not to put things on my to do
Speaker 1: list that I don't actually intend to do. So once
Speaker 1: an annoying task was on the list for the week,
Speaker 1: I generally do it because again, it's only one thing.
Speaker 1: And now I have been the happy beneficiary of the
Speaker 1: truth that if you keep making small progress, the list
Speaker 1: does eventually go down. I have done several of the
Speaker 1: annoying tasks, and while more do come up alas the
Speaker 1: pace has been such that the list is getting smaller,
Speaker 1: I have been crossing things off at a steady clip.
Speaker 1: Perhaps you will find the same thing. So if you
Speaker 1: two are feeling weighed down by the list of nagging,
Speaker 1: complicated and unpleasant tasks you need to do, try listing
Speaker 1: them all so you have a sense of them. You
Speaker 1: want to make sure you are not forgetting stuff. This
Speaker 1: will also allow you to make sure that you don't
Speaker 1: miss deadlines, because you can triage to do the immediate
Speaker 1: annoying tasks before the ones with a farther off deadline,
Speaker 1: and then you can assign yourself the tasks at a
Speaker 1: steady pace so you get through them. You can take
Speaker 1: comfort from the fact that the list is probably not infinite.
Speaker 1: It may be long, but it won't be infinite. Am
Speaker 1: I still annoyed that one camp won't accept our electronically
Speaker 1: signed health form from our pediatrician, so someone has to
Speaker 1: bring the camp's particular forum to the office and get
Speaker 1: it signed. Yes, yes, I am annoyed. But if that
Speaker 1: is the only annoying task I have to deal with
Speaker 1: in a week, well maybe I can just drop it
Speaker 1: on the way somewhere and send someone else to pick
Speaker 1: it up and it won't be so bad in the
Speaker 1: grand scheme of things. In the meantime, this is Laura.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening, and here's to making the most of
Speaker 1: our time. Thanks for listening to Before Breakfast. If you've
Speaker 1: got questions, ideas, or feedback, you can reach me at
Speaker 1: Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. Before Breakfast is a
Speaker 1: production of iHeartMedia. For more podcasts from iHeartMedia, please visit
Speaker 1: the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to
Speaker 1: your favorite shows,