The blog

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

An unfor­tu­nate postponement

The down­side, of course, is that the big, more impor­tant tasks get put off and, in the worst-case sce­nario, you do not start work­ing on them until you absolute­ly have to in order to com­plete them before they are due. You have to do them under stress and pres­sure, which can mean that the qual­i­ty of the work is not as high as you would like.

Of course, there are tricks you can use to get the impor­tant, not-yet-urgent tasks done in good time — even if you are tempt­ed to opt for the quick, easy ones instead.

Do this

Here are four things you can do:

• Set par­tial dead­lines so that parts of the big task become a lit­tle urgent a few times before the final deadline.
• Block out time in your cal­en­dar to work on the impor­tant tasks — what­ev­er short tasks that hap­pen to be on your list at the time.
• Make it clear to your­self what the dire con­se­quences will be if you do not start on the impor­tant tasks in a time­ly man­ner. If you have set aside time in your cal­en­dar for the task, write a note in your cal­en­dar entry describ­ing as vivid­ly as you can what hap­pened the last time you put off a task for too long and how you became dis­sat­is­fied with the situation.
• Resolve to spend at least 15 min­utes each day work­ing on an impor­tant task that you tend to put off (because oth­er things tempt you). After those 15 min­utes, check off that you have man­aged to devote at least those 15 min­utes to a task that is not due for a long time.

Bet­ter done under less stress

If you use some trick, either one of the above or what­ev­er else that works for you, to pri­or­i­tize impor­tant, not-yet-urgent tasks well in advance, you will fin­ish soon­er than at the last minute. Your good antic­i­pa­tion means you will not have to rush through the task and instead you will have time to make the final adjust­ments that will make the result at least a notch bet­ter than if you would have rushed through it. You can feel more sat­is­fied with and proud of what you have achieved!

What’s your way?

Do you have some oth­er trick you apply to help your­self pri­or­i­tize things you are reluc­tant to do? Per­haps you resort to the clas­sic method of break­ing the task down into small­er steps to make it eas­i­er to get through. Or, some­thing com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent? Please write to me and share. 

(Does it some­times feel hard to sort out which tasks should come first? Maybe this can help you to fig­ure out what is impor­tant right now!)