Who doesn’t have tasks on their to-do lists that have been there forever due to the sheer magnitude of the effort?
“Create website” is not a problem for me (if anything, I have too many) but I hear it often from other people without one. Organize messy desktop (virtual or IRL). File.
Until recently, one of mine was to tidy up the giant pile of notes that sits beside my computer. From meetings, handwritten to-dos, random phone numbers or information I’ve written down.
For months, the item “type up client notes” was an item leering at me from my list, always slipping to the bottom.
Inspiration: half step
Until I finally thought, why not a half step?
If the full task would be to take the hours required to decipher my scrawl and put the notes where they should be in each online project folder, what would be the half step? The half step that would make this problem marginally better than a pile of papers?
A pile of papers with those obsolete to-do lists weeded out. Random numbers recorded to their proper places, and a pile of client notes, pulled from my notebook and put in order by client.
No, they’re not typed up. But they are easily accessible. The pile is cut by a third, and they now reside in a folder in my filing cabinet. Accessible at any minute for a client meeting.
A problem half solved
And the fix only took an hour. And the task may even have fallen off my to-do list entirely, because I found a half step that is definitely an improvement to the original goal.
Anyone have a task they cut down to size by giving up on perfection?
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