If you’re not one of those people with self-discipline of steel, this article is for you. The truth is, the things we don’t wanna do are almost always little tasks that for some reason our mind has overblown into giant, mind-sucking endeavors that we avoid like the plague. I can’t tell you how many college classes I failed just because going through the rigamarole of meeting with the counselor and getting the signature to drop seemed so taxing.
Sad, but true.
However, I’ve come a long way since then, and now I truly am a master of getting the little annoying things done. This is because I’ve honed three very effective little methods to getting crap done – and anything you don’t wanna do, we can consider “crap.” In the last tip, I’m going to share my deep, dark, nerdy secret for how I get really annoying little tasks done.
Tip #1 – Do it in your spare time.
Instead of carving out time in your schedule to do both your filing and watch Lost, why not do both at the same time? (You know the plot is just going to continue to not make sense, anyway.) You don’t accumulate that much paper each week. Everyone watches tv, and almost everyone I know just sits there glassy-eyed while they do it. I can’t remember the last time I sat and just watched a tv show. Now, I always get things done while watching.
Yes, it annoys my significant other, but that’s just too bad!
Tip #2 – Bribe yourself – or deny yourself something you like, until your work is done.
I also do this daily. There are a million ways to apply this one. For myself personally, I don’t eat until I get all my morning work done. If that means that I don’t go out for lunch until 2, that’s what it means. What do you like to do? Don’t allow yourself to do it, until the drudgery work is done.
One of my favorite things to do is make myself work super hard for some period of time, and then allow myself to have a night off where I can go nerd-crazy playing World of Warcraft. (If you’ve never played, it’s an online multi-player war/quest game. I’d suggest NOT looking into it; I could have gotten my MBA in the amount of time I’ve spent playing this game.)
Making cold calls, or calling all those numbers to try to find potential claimants? Decide how many calls you’re going to make with a break at X number of calls. Then reward yourself.
Tip #3 – Break it up into little chunks.
My favorite tip – and I think the most effective – is to break up big projects into very small pieces and switch off work with a small break, work with a small break, until the entire project is done. This isn’t the fastest way to get a project done, but if you are in danger of never getting it done or putting it off for weeks, which is the better alternative?
One thing I really don’t like to do is set up the credibility websites for our Hooked On Overages students. Don’t get me wrong, the students are all great and I encourage them all, please, get a credibility website with us – but all kinds of little tweaks go into setting them up and sometimes I get 20 requests a day. The idea of sitting and doing 20 cred sites in a row makes me want to stab hot pokers in my eyes.
So what do I do?
I set up a cred site, and then I reward myself with a game of Typing Maniac on Facebook. It’s a game where words fall and you have to type them before they hit the ground… I know. I can’t figure out what I’m doing playing this game. Between Twitter, articles, and blog posts, all I ever do is type.
Tip #3.5 – If all else fails, just go through the motions.
I have had moments trying to get through a huge stack of boring tasks where I actually had to fight the urge to get up and physically flee the scene. (editor’s note: it may be time for a vacation.) However, look at it this way. If you sit and go through the motions, it will get done eventually. All you have to do is exist for a specific period of time, let the time pass, and the task will be done. Hate skiptracing? Hate preparing claims (or whatever it is that you do that just makes your skin crawl)? Just take a deep breath, relax, and zone out. It’s gotta get done, and it’ll be done soon enough.
These tips may sound obvious – and maybe a little cheesy – but they work.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a game of Typing Maniac to play.
