Every job has some degree of work, those repetitive, pointless tasks that can often be boring and exhausting. Most people dread tasks like stuffing envelopes or filing expense reports, and would prefer more fulfilling and challenging work. As a professional organizer who encourages people to find joy in tidying up their desks, calendars, and filing cabinets, I know the thinking behind grunt work all too well. Organization is often thought of as grunt work. But I'm not offended, because I know 99% of this is mental; managing what you think about tasks instead of doing the tasks themselves.
Related: How to Trick Your Mind into Doing Things You Hate Doing
Three major emotional obstacles get in the way of musculature through grunt work.
How we feel about what we're doing, which puts us in a critical, often unpleasant state.
We wait for the perfect conditions to begin, like being in the mood or at the right time of day to engage in certain tasks.
The biggest obstacle we face is procrastination, which by definition is choosing a task that is more enjoyable than the task at hand.
1. Change your mindset.
Let's start all of this emotional thinking by giving the term grunt work a more desirable title, like "necessary." These small works are necessary players in your working set. The famous actor and playwright Constantin Stanislavski once said, “There are no small roles, only small actors. He wanted to encourage his actors to invest in what was given to them, regardless of the number of lines or the stage time. Since our perception is that these jobs are petty or menial at best, demeaning or boring at worst, we find ourselves labeling or judging the work. When you trivialize work from the start, your emotions take over. The first step is to release the emotion and judgment you have around this work. Just engage in the work.
Related: The Best Apps to Help You Get Things Done
Recently our kitchen was remodeled with all new cabinetry. The cabinet maker came every day for several days and made all the cabinets by hand. I marveled not only at his craftsmanship, but also at his ability to perform repetitive tasks over and over again. He didn't question what he was doing or the emotional; he simply built beautiful cabinets, one step at a time. The small daily steps he took led him to a beautiful work (and a beautiful new kitchen, for us too). He understood that each task built upon the next, all equally contributing to the end product.
2. Stop waiting.
The second obstacle people face is that they wait for the perfect condition to attack those jobs, fooling themselves into thinking that there is a right time of day or a certain mood in which they must be before they can begin. Establish your daily schedule with the most favorable times for this type of work. If you work best in the morning, take the start of the day to do those less desirable tasks. It will also give you an early sense of accomplishment, which continues throughout the day. Consider setting a timer, even just 15 minutes to start. As you improve focus, you can extend the time. This will give you an idea of how long it will take you to complete these tasks. You might find that 15 minutes a day helps you accomplish everything you need in a week.
Related: 4 steps to master the art of concentration
3. Stick with it.
It doesn't take much to derail us from our work. Something as simple as a text or social media post can cause us to put off work at hand. Procrastination suddenly replaced our emotional thinking. This could happen in almost any situation where a choice has to be made; there will simply always be something better to choose from. I'm not the only one thinking. Procrastination experts say this task delay doesn't help much. It just postpones the inevitable. Wouldn't it be better to start with the unpleasant task?
Managing procrastination habits can be solved with a simple reward tweak. If you make a plan to clean your office filing system over the course of a week, make a daily routine to get the job done. At the end of the week, you can reward yourself with something that matches the goal achieved. I don't mean booking a trip to Vegas for emptying out a desk drawer. Reward yourself with a latte or a small treat. This work and reward system will not only get you to your goal faster, but also makes the work more enjoyable along the way.
With these simple changes in the way we think and feel about the necessary, we can be more productive. In the words of Saint Francis of Assisi, “Begin by doing what is necessary; then do what is possible; and suddenly you do the impossible. »
Related: 3 questions highly productive people ask themselves every day
