Prioritizing action

Some of us who are intellectually curious, voracious readers are constantly consuming information.  It’s natural to want to stay on top of breaking news, trends, and learn new things.  But we’ll never have “all” the info.  And many times we’ve already consumed enough to determine a reasonable course of action.

Here’s something I’m working on for myself, that may be helpful to others:  assuming I already have reliable info on any topic (a pandemic, water consumption, sugar intake, sleep…) I force myself to change my behavior based on what I learned before consuming more.

Tricking yourself into doing what you should

Psychologists call it temptation bundling when we pair something we want to do with something we know we should do.

I want to listen to a podcast or newly released live music, so I make sure I commit to doing it only while I’m running, cleaning the house, doing mindless administrative tasks, or anything else that feels more like a “should”.

Pairing wants with should’s is an effective psychological hack, because you can actually look forward to the activity and be productive.

Productivity hack: batching

Batching is reserving a block of time to complete similar tasks, rather than doing them arbitrarily. You’ll be better focused and you’ll reduce the stop/start transition time.

We already do this with shopping – we create a list rather than driving to the store every time we want an apple.  But most don’t think to do this with things like bills – we pay sporadically or as they come in (or the day they’re due), rather than in one 10-minute block every other week.

You’ll find you spend less time rushing if you batch email time, phone calls, reading, accounting, studying/learning, creating/writing, cooking and any other tasks worthy of your time.