Today I decided to just handle everything that’s been backing up, but hasn’t been a top priority. I set up invoicing for the island and began to collect money from everyone to pay for upcoming expenses. I bought socks. I listed a bunch of stuff on ebay that had been collecting dust for months on my “to sell” shelf. I began the process of switching banks for the island, to avoid monthly fees. I vacuumed. Once I write this, I’ll start dealing with the mountain of emails I haven’t responded to.
These things have to get done, and it’s nice to bring them to a close for their own rewards, but the real benefit is how smoothly everything else goes afterwards. What a feeling it is to work on a big project with no collection of minor tasks nagging in the back of your mind.
Besides the low-level nagging, these unimportant tasks can unexpectedly become top priority. If your sock suddenly has a big hole in it, you have to interrupt your work to buy new socks. This interruption of big blocks of time is toxic.
That’s the important thing to remember when considering taking one day to consolidate and deal with buildup. It’s not that any of these things in isolation, or even in combination, are more important than your big projects, it’s that by getting them out of the way, you can give your big projects the time, focus, and attention they need.
I should probably do it more often, maybe every week or two, but my trigger is when I feel stressed out by things that normally don’t stress me. I examine why, and it’s always the same thing: I feel overwhelmed by little things that I’m not prioritizing.
Make the time to handle these little things. Maybe today, or maybe this weekend when other people aren’t working. Make a big list of everything that, if completed, would make you feel great, and just start chunking through them. Don’t worry about whether they’re worth doing or not, just keep going.
Pay attention to how you feel afterwards, or the next day. How long does the momentum of the psychic benefit last? Remember that and use it as motivation to have another consolidation day a few weeks from now.
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Photo is a reproduction of a Korean house in the British Museum. I love it.
I think I’m going to switch back to posting just once per week for the rest of the year. My writing hasn’t been very inspired lately, and I’d rather just have one good post per week.
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