Over at GameProducer.net, 1-Minute Solution to Getting Things Done gives the advice that if you have something to do that can be completed within a minute, then do it. David Allen would use two minutes as the time limit.
The point, of course, is that there is no reason why such a small task should remain uncompleted for too long. Maybe you need to put it off to handle something more important, but you must have some moments during your day when you could take care of a small task.
It won’t take me more than a couple of minutes to pay off a parking ticket, but I’ve been putting it off. Two days have come and gone, and I still have an unpaid parking ticket in my bag. I could pay it online easily, but I decided not to do so. Maybe the idea of taking out my wallet and getting my credit card number is too painful, especially right after Christmas? I don’t know.
What I do know is that it is easy to find other things to do instead, but at the end of two days, I had plenty of time to handle this task. So what did I do with that time? I don’t know. I couldn’t tell you. Essentially, I’ve lost that time. Otherwise, I would be able to say, “See? At this time I was busy doing something more important.”
I’ll handle that parking ticket now. Or maybe when I get home…
It is definitely too easy to put things off. Quick tasks can be done now. Who knows? It might even give you momentum. B-)
2 replies on “Do Quick Tasks Now”
Is that parking ticket handled now, for sure? 😉
I could just answer “Yes” and be accurate enough, but I’ll be honest and say that it wasn’t actually paid until the day after I wrote that post. B-)