Doing the Small Things

For a long long time, I tried avoid doing the small things. The things that I felt did not have a meaningful impact on my life, on whether or not I would be successful. These inconsequential things felt like chores.

Each time I had a thought about doing the task, I would mentally write it off. I would say, “not now, not important.” Unfortunately, these mental reminders kept coming up and I kept putting off the task. These mental reminders kept me from spending time working on impactful things. The time and energy of putting off doing the chores were several times greater than doing the task itself.

One way I tried to solve this problem is that every time a thought of a chore came up, I did the chore immediately. This prevent me from having to remember to do it later. What I realized was that I would zig zag between chores and meaningful work. This is also expensive.

Now I split my day into two parts. The morning is spent on planning and meaningful work. The afternoon on chores. I use the app “Remember the Milk” to create lists and schedule all things I need to get done. This frees up my mind from having to remember and attempt to recall things to do.