Why You Should Start Every Day by Doing One Small Task
If you have a lot of tasks to accomplish during the day, you can use a few different approaches to increase your productivity. You can “ eat the frog ”, that is, get rid of the heaviest and most demanding responsibility first of all. On the other hand, you can come up with something particularly simple first. Here’s why it might suit you better.
Why You Should Do Simple Tasks First Thing Every Day
When you eat a frog and immediately take on a difficult task, you have to focus on it and get everything done. The problem is that smaller, more annoying responsibilities like answering emails or scheduling meetings get stuck in your head and swirling around. You may not be able to concentrate if you are busy with a lot of other little things. By eliminating them first, you can clear the path you need to really dive into deep work when the time comes to do something more difficult or time-consuming.
The second reason this strategy works is because you get a sense of accomplishment when you cross something off your to-do list. Sure, it’s something small, but that feeling of accomplishment can be disproportionately large and can start your day off with an easy win, setting you up to move forward.
How to decide which tasks are big and which are small
In general, the task you dread or procrastinate on will likely require the most effort, but this is not always the case. I’m great at focusing on large projects and terrible at small maintenance tasks like answering emails or invoicing. I can sit down and write a long essay with no problem, but if I can help it, I’ll put the one-page essay down for a few weeks, only to realize that it only took me 15 minutes and almost no mental capacity once I actually decided to do it. . The key to choosing a small task to do first each day is to identify one that you know will be easy but will result in some feeling of reward in your brain. Whether it’s easy or not doesn’t matter as long as you feel good when it’s over, and choosing something you know you don’t want to do is an easy way to make sure it happens.
In addition, you should develop the habit of sorting your responsibilities by timeliness and importance. Use a system like the Eisenhower Matrix or Kanban to figure out what you actually need to do, then choose something from that category that you can do quickly and efficiently, get it out of the way, and enjoy the accomplishments. as you move forward in your day and its more complex demands.