You’ll do anything except the task you need to do. Why do we avoid important tasks?

I have a list of jobs that I've been avoiding for a little while and I spent today ploughing through them.

You know those tasks that immediately give you the ick, the ones where your heart sinks when they arrive on your to do list. I don’t know about you, but I find it very easy to park those kinds of tasks, my avoidance tactics are strong!  My nemesis are tasks are filling out paperwork, picking up parcels and any other annoying tasks that I perceive to be multi-stepped and complicated. I shove them down my priority list constantly especially if they have a flexible or lengthy due date until they become urgent to do just like in Eisenhower’s Maxtrix, if you are interested in this productivity tool check out this blog post here.

Avoiding these sorts of tasks create 3 distinct problems:

1. Unforeseen time pressures and unknown potential problems. By avoiding tasks completely and doing no checking or assessment can leave us with issues that are out of our control, such as illness, shops being closed, printers breaking, key people being off, the list goes on.

2. They become a time drain: by avoiding this task we tend to keep looking at it, spending a few minutes assessing it and then putting it to the bottom of the list again creating multiple touch points. Alternatively we completely avoid everything to do with the task and don’t realise that it could have been broken down into multiple small steps that could have been completed easily over time, however having to complete them all at the same time, under pressure becomes a huge time suck.

3. Emotional and energy drain. My own experience with these sorts of task tells me that I waste time repeatedly thinking "Oh don't forget to deal with that this week" multiple times over the week.  The emotional cost can also be large by spending energy feeling guilty about not doing the task, or just knowing that the task is still lurking can leave us with a heavy panicky sort of feeling and general mindset drag.

So, what is the answer? Well, there isn’t a one size fits all solution unfortunately! It completely depends upon our personality and how we work but here are a few ideas that might work for you.

Assessment and sub task

Instead of adopting an ostrich mentality and completely ignoring the task try assessing how it could be broken down into smaller chunks. By doing this it might expose sub tasks that are more of your vibe, tasks that feel easy because they are small and feel like a quick win.

The Dot Challenge

Years ago, I was shown a tool to use to keep on top of tasks (bear in mind this was in the days when we were all in an office, everybody had their own desk and dealt in paper!) where every time you pick up a task you mark it with a dot of some kind. At the end of the day, you'll be able to see the tasks that have multiple dots showing you type of task you typically avoid and just how much of a time waste they can be.

Whilst times have changed I think this is still a great tool. Try noticing when you have the same thought throughout the week and mentally tag a dot. It's interesting to note where your mental energy is being used and, in some cases, drained.

Altering our mindset

As I said today was the day I focused on 'lifting the burden', shifting the dragging sensation those tasks were leaving me with by completing them. One thing I did to help with my mindset next time was to time myself and I was shooketh!

To do, what felt like a huge list including preparation, wrapping, visiting 4 different places, parking and queuing only took 2 hours. Honestly in my head it was going to take all day. Going forward I’m going to remind myself of this experience.

Rewards

I gave myself a reward. I made a list and promised myself a nice lunch whilst watching traitors if I ticked them all off. Having a guilt-free treat booked in made me feel more positive about the whole experience and gave it a finish line making moving on to other tasks easier.

Do you have any tasks that are causing you a mental burden? How could you take action?

Book recommendations

Feel good productivity by Ali Abdaal

Effortless by Greg Mckeown