The blog

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

The sim­pli­fi­ca­tion can be advanced, such as writ­ing a rou­tine or pro­gram that auto­mat­i­cal­ly per­forms a task we nor­mal­ly do man­u­al­ly. But, even the small­est and sim­plest sim­pli­fi­ca­tion ren­ders more time and ener­gy for doing oth­er things, and at least makes the task feel eas­i­er to complete.

Here is one way of sim­pli­fy­ing the per­form­ing of a task you do from time to time.

Do this

1. First of all; when it comes to recur­ring tasks, it is def­i­nite­ly advan­ta­geous to have a dig­i­tal to-do-list. So, if you do not have one already, get your­self a dig­i­tal list. It can for instance be in the form of Microsoft To-Do or some oth­er app or service.
2. Now think about it; what tasks do you per­form some­what fre­quent­ly? If you can only think of one, that’s enough for now.
3. Add the task as a recur­ring task on your dig­i­tal to-do-list. The repeat­ing of a task is a fea­ture and func­tion avail­able in most dig­i­tal lists.
4. There is most like­ly a box or field some­where when you are cre­at­ing the task des­ig­nat­ed for notes. This is where you can add links for any doc­u­ments you will need when doing the task. Your tool might even have a but­ton for con­nect­ing a link to the task.
5. You could also insert a check­list describ­ing how to do the task into the field des­ig­nat­ed for notes (or link to it). It could be as sim­ple as:
   
   1. First, do this.
   2.Then do that.
   3.Thereafter click here.
   4. And final­ly print one of these.
   
   If you add a sim­ple descrip­tion of how you usu­al­ly do the task, the thresh­old of doing the task will def­i­nite­ly be low­er since you are help­ing your­self get start­ed and will not have to exert the effort of remem­ber­ing how you usu­al­ly go about the process.
6. You could also insert texts and for­mu­la­tions you need when doing the task (or link to them). This could for exam­ple be the text you write in an email to the per­son who you need to email when doing the task, or what stan­dard for­mat you have agreed with some­one to always fol­low when nam­ing a par­tic­u­lar kind of document.
7. You can also insert a short­cut to the fold­er where you will store the end result of what­ev­er you are going to do.
8. Or per­haps you write a list of all the recip­i­ents who you will send the final results to?
9. If you have only read through these sug­ges­tions with­out tak­ing action, then ask your­self: which one of the above sug­ges­tions could you ben­e­fit from doing con­cern­ing the task you have in mind? It is enough to only decide on imple­ment­ing one. If you can­not make up your mind, choose the first one you come to think of and don’t pon­der on the mat­ter further.
10. Do what you need to in order to fin­ish adding the recur­ring task to your to-do-list or for­mu­lat­ing a to-do-task that dic­tates what you will do to imple­ment this sin­gle simplification.

Sow once, reap repeatedly

If you for­mu­late your recur­ring tasks in a clear, con­cise and pre­cise man­ner, and include as much of the infor­ma­tion you need to com­plete them, they will get done much soon­er and eas­i­er. You will decrease the risk of post­pon­ing them due to them being dif­fi­cult or cum­ber­some, and make it eas­i­er to do the tasks, not just once, but repeat­ed­ly from now on, due to one sin­gle simplification.

What is your method?

How do you sim­pli­fy tasks you do often? If we are able to auto­mate recur­ring assign­ments we will have more space and time for what tru­ly lights our fire and sparks our inter­est. If you have any ideas or meth­ods you would want to share, please write to me.

(Do you want to sim­pli­fy even more of your tasks?)