Do the fun stuff last

From a series of stories shared with me by Hunters in this Farmer's World

Image by Xuan Duong from Pixabay

Procrastination is an eternal struggle for Hunters; there’s always something more interesting or fun to do than the drudge work that keeps us fed and paid. But there are a few tricks you can use to overcome a tendency toward delaying things, and one of the best is to prioritize both work and fun, but in a particular order.

A few years ago I sat next to a business guy on a plane and we got into a conversation about ADHD; he later emailed me his summary of our conversation (per my request). Here it is:

From Bill, A guy I sat next to on a flight from Phoenix to Cincinnati:

I find that my most destructive procrastination has to do with those things that are the most important, but not the easiest to knock off quickly.

When I walk into my office, there’s the stack of mail and phone calls to return. That stack is calling me, like the siren’s song, because I can flick through them fast. They all represent a higher level of stimula­tion and interest than the boring stuff, the report that I have to write, or the marketing analysis that I have to have done sometime in the next two weeks.

But I’ve found that if I take the important things first, and, among them, the most unpleasant important things very first, I get much, much more done.

The mail then sits at the corner of my desk as a reward to me for doing the job of writing the report or spending an hour on the thing I knew I really didn’t want to do.

I also find that once I’ve finished the hardest job of the day, or at least taken a bite out of it as my starting point for the morning, that the rest of the day goes well. I don’t have that thing hanging over my head, and I’m not feeling guilty about it not being done.

The little things are always easy, like opening the mail and returning phone calls. They’re even fun, usually. But if I do them first, then the rest of the day is a let-down and I find that I’m descending from the fun stuff into the drudge work.

So, by simply flipping the order in which I do things, and doing the unpleasant stuff first, this little system works well for me and makes my days better.