Gretchen Rubin says completely clearing your decks to make way for one major task can be unnecessary and even destructive when that big task is over.
Recently, I released a new book. As Life in Five Senses is my tenth, I had a pretty good idea about what to expect from the process.
Nevertheless, I made a mistake that I’ve made many times before — around book publication and also around other major challenges in my life.
When something demanding looms on the calendar, I start to tell myself: “With such and such coming up, I can’t possibly handle anything else.
“Every other task, chore, or problem just needs to wait until I’m on the other side of this big date.”
My sister, Elizabeth Craft is a television writer in Hollywood, and she tells me she does the same thing.
“When I’m shooting a pilot, it’s like nothing else matters. I ignore everything I possibly can,” she says.
While I’m letting everything pile up, I reassure myself: “Oh, once I’m past my major obligation, I’ll have plenty of time and energy for all this other stuff.”
As writer, Elias Canetti notes in The Human Province: “One lives with the naïve notion that later there will be more room than in the entire past.”
Eventually time passes, tomorrow becomes today, and all those postponed tasks crash down on me at once.
To be sure, it’s important to spend our energy and time wisely, and during a crunch period, it’s a good idea to manage the load by rearranging certain tasks.
The problem is that once I latch on to that justification for delay, I tend to put off many items on my to-do list that, in reality, I could have done at the usual time.
Now that my book tour is over, I realise — no surprise — that I’ve burdened myself unnecessarily in the present, because I put off so many things.
To avoid this pitfall the next time I face a big crunch, I’ve come up with three questions to consider when I’m tempted to postpone.
Firstly, does this task truly demand much time or energy, or do I just dread doing it?
Secondly, overall will I save time or energy by doing this task now instead of delaying?
Finally, if there’s a task I can’t do now (dentist check-up, work meeting, etc.), can I go ahead and put it on the calendar, after my big date?
What are some other ways you’ve found to manage the everyday pressures of work when you’re facing an unusually demanding period?
*Gretchen Rubin is the author of the New York Times bestsellers, Better Than Before, The Happiness Project, and Happier at Home. She writes about happiness and habit-formation. She can be followed on Twitter @gretchenrubin.
This article first appeared on Gretchen’s blogsite.
