So I did a bit of a personal audit. I had a look at which of the (far too many) tasks on my lists were most often put-off. It wasn’t a very scientific exercise, but I put the date each item hit my to do list on the item:
“Write entertaining yet informative blog post (19 May 2010)”
I did this for the last month, and then periodically checked which type of tasks had been on there the longest. The results? Well, as you happened to have asked:
So as you can see, it is phone calls I put off more than anything else. Yes, it may be that I get more advance warning on phone calls, but I know I put these off. In fact, my biggest motivation for writing a post right now is to put off a call…
Very interesting. No, seriously it is. You see, if you don;t know you have a problem then it is very hard to start trying to solve it. I knew subconsciously that I was putting off calls, but hadn’t ‘outed’ myself – instead, all I saw were projects never quite getting finished, and less time to complete tasks than if I had made the call earlier. Effectively, no matter how hard I tried at getting more efficient with the rest of what I was doing, my delaying of calls was sabotaging my productivity. Not clever. And probably points to deeper problems in my psyche, but I suspect that is a different blog entirely…
So I asked some other people – a brief Twitter poll, an entertaining discussion around the office, and an utterly unhelpful suggestion from my wife. And what did that tell me:
Well, not a lot to be honest. Other than that admin/housework style maintenance tasks are what most of us put off most. It came second in my own list too. I suspect this is partly because these tasks usually can be put off easily, and partly because they are usually routine and thus dull.
But the real point is this – we are ALL putting things off, and the things we put off usually have a pattern. For me, it is phone calls – so for the last two days I have made all my phone calls before 10am. Got them out of the way. And you know what – the rest of my day feels so much easier with out a bunch of things I don’t like doing praying on the back of my mind.
So then, what did you put off today? Why don’t you do them NOW!
