Something startled one of my dogs in the middle of the night last night, and her barking woke me up. The outburst was short-lived, but it took me a while to fall asleep again.
When that happens, I usually pick a category and list all of the things I can think of in that category, like things you can keep in a shoebox, or every state capital I’ve been to.
But last night, thoughts of work crept in, and I was thinking about a handful of items on my to-do list that I just haven’t been able to get to.
And I got to thinking: I’m pretty good at blocking time on my calendar to work on things that aren’t meetings. On Mondays, when I see big chunks of unscheduled time later in the week, I’m quick to designate a couple of them for specific projects.
But for the jumble of little tasks on my to-do list that don’t have deadlines and that keep getting pushed to the next day, and the next day, and the next day, I’m not as diligent about finding time.
As I lay awake last night, I thought of what now seems like an obvious solution: schedule time to get as many of them done at once.
On her podcast, Gretchen Rubin often suggests a “power hour” for clearing your at-home to-do list, so why not do it at work? Find an hour on your calendar and block it specifically for those pesky tasks that probably aren’t difficult to accomplish but just won’t go away.
Let me know if you try it and how it worked for you!