The older we get, the more bombarded we are by tasks that aren’t particularly important or high on our priority lists. They’re the minutiae, what we might call the “scum” of life. Sure, some of them can be relaxing—enjoyable even. If we’re being totally honest though, they’re just in the way of us achieving our goals and getting actual work done (see: work we’re actually paid for).
We tend to call such tasks errands or chores. Here’s a list of the most common tasks to jog your memory.
- Grocery shopping
- Meal planning
- Paying taxes
- Car maintenance
- Bill payment
- House repair and cleaning
- Gardening
- Laundry and ironing
- Medical check ups
The list goes on, often annoyingly so. But no matter how tedious they might sound, these maintenance tasks are necessary if we want to lead happy and healthy lives. And if we’re looking to maintain a certain quality of life, we have to constantly manage a growing list of them. Getting a new car will require maintenance, a new house: mortgage payments, a new gadget: new tools, a new hobby: new materials, a new friend: more appointments…
Yet many of us seem utterly content, accomplishing each of these tasks only whenever we remember them.
The value of list making
It cannot be stressed enough how helpful it is to have a list of maintenance tasks at hand at all times. It’s only too easy to let things slip through the cracks when we don’t have a concrete list of things that need to get done. So instead of constantly depending on faulty human memory, externalize that jumble of information in your head.
Try creating a list of maintenance tasks, which you can update regularly. Having a single list you can reference makes it easy to choose which of all your maintenance tasks fits best into your daily schedule. It also allows you to accomplish random tasks whenever you have the free time.
Making the list worthwhile
While the simple act of making a list will help your daily productivity immensely on its own, there are a number of ways to make your maintenance list even more worthwhile:
- List down action steps or subtasks, if any
- List down required tools or materials for each task, so you can prepare them beforehand, or buy them if you’re missing a few)
- Identify the frequency of each maintenance task (one-time, yearly, monthly, etc.)
- Identify deadlines
- List other pertinent notes
- Update it regularly
Doing each of these things will minimize the friction we feel when it comes to doing the actual tasks. We take a surprising amount of time and energy whenever we stop to consider every element of a task. Having a comprehensive list on hand makes us focus less on the thinking and more on the doing.
Of course, you don’t have to apply all the methods mentioned above. But in the event that you do, try creating a table on a spreadsheet—setting aside one column each for action steps, tools, etc. (Google Sheets is a good place to keep them, if you prefer being able to access it on all your devices.) The info capturing process should feel pretty intuitive.
Batching those tasks
The sheer amount of maintenance tasks we rack up can be overwhelming. Thankfully, most of them are mindless enough that you can do a bunch of them at a time. In fact, it’s probably best that you do them that way, so you don’t needlessly break up your focus when dealing with more important projects.
You can try setting aside one hour on any given day to knock tasks off your list. Happiness researcher Gretchen Rubin fondly calls such a session Power Hour. Fit as much as you can within that hour, and you might just be surprised at how much you can get done. This is especially useful when dealing with nagging tasks.
If one hour seems too short and abrupt for you, you can opt for Chris Bailey’s method of setting aside a maintenance day. While a maintenance day seems eerily similar to your usual Saturday afternoon of random errands, adopting his version of a maintenance day implicitly requires that you (1) have a list on hand and (2) don’t have work or other major tasks lined up. (P.S. Keeping a maintenance list was his idea, too!)
Lastly, a hack you can try in conjunction with the Power Hour and the maintenance day is David Allen’s two-minute rule for getting unstuck. If any task can be accomplished within two minutes, do it immediately.
While maintenance tasks seem like necessary evils, they’re largely responsible for making us feel and function like effective members of society. Taking care of these tasks, in many ways, means taking care of yourself and the people around you. Do your best not to neglect them, or you might just find yourself amidst a mountain of overwhelm.
