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For you who prefer listening to reading, this post is also available as an episode of the ""Done!"" podcast:

The small grains between the big­ger stones

You don’t have to, but you can use these gaps to com­plete small tasks if you want. Tasks that don’t require much con­cen­tra­tion. It may be some­thing that can be done quick­ly, but for some rea­son, you did­n’t do it right away when you first became aware. These are like­ly tasks that can be done with the tools you have on hand, almost always your phone.

For me, these small tasks could be skim­ming through an SEO report, com­pos­ing a short text for a social media post, answer­ing a quick ques­tion from some­one tak­ing one of my online cours­es, adjust­ing the cod­ing for an expense I made, and much more.

The key is to come up with these tasks, find them quick­ly, or have them pre­sent­ed to you as if on demand when­ev­er you want.

Do this

Let your to-do list help you. I assume it’s dig­i­tal (like mine), but you can do some­thing sim­i­lar if you have it in paper format.

To make it easy for you to find these tasks when a gap appears, you can label them with a tag (or cat­e­go­ry, label, or what­ev­er it’s called in the app you use) for tasks that can be done on the go. Call the tag ​“On the Go” or what­ev­er you think is appropriate.

When a gap aris­es and you want to take advan­tage of it, have your to-do list show only the ​“On the Go” tasks, choose one, com­plete it, and enjoy the sat­is­fy­ing feel­ing of get­ting it done.

If you don’t want to cre­ate anoth­er tag (because you may already have many), make it a habit to always choose tasks with anoth­er suit­able tag that you already have. When I want to take advan­tage of a gap, I choose a task with the Phone tag, because I almost always have my phone avail­able when I have a gap, and I can do any task that only requires my phone as a tool.

Note: You don’t have to fill every wak­ing moment with pro­duc­tive work, but if you want to make the most of the small gaps in every­day life, these are the tasks you can do.

Many small streams

If you get small tasks done on the go, from one thing to anoth­er, they’re done when you sit down to focus on the big­ger tasks. When you final­ly get a more extend­ed peri­od of focused work, you have few­er small tasks to ​“just do first” before start­ing. You make bet­ter use of your more valu­able work time and have more time for the most impor­tant tasks. Eas­i­er and smoother!

How do you do it?

What can these ​“on the go” tasks be for you? What are the small things you like to do in small gaps? Write to me and tell me, because per­haps I’ll think of more small things I’ll be hap­py to get done from now on. I also want to make the most of my valu­able focus time.

(Look­ing to get more small tasks out of the way? Check out how to kick-start your day with a few quick tasks!)