You don’t do laundry every time you change your outfit. You don’t run the dishwasher every time a dish gets dirty. You don’t brew an eighth of an inch of fresh coffee each time you take a drink. You batch these things, do them in bulk.
What seems so intuitive for chores is bizarrely unintuitive when it comes to everything else. We let decisions and distractions splinter our day, dice our focus into confetti.
Making decisions feels productive, but our ability to make them diminishes throughout the day. Even small, unimportant choices can erode judgment. Questions snowball: “When should I wake up? What should I wear? What’s for breakfast? Should I work out today?” Especially when they break into microdecisions, like “Do I have time to shower?” or “What cup should I use?”
By incorporating schedules (planned tasks), routines (chains of minor tasks), templates (guides), and rules (pre-made decisions), you can eliminate a lot of guesswork from your day. Instead of making it up as you go each day, you can:
- Set an alarm.
- Follow a morning ritual.
- Do a guided workout.
- Simplify your wardrobe.
- Prep meals weekly.
- Schedule time to watch TV.
- Check email at set times.
In Making Ideas Happen, Scott Belsky writes about what happens when we give in to micro-distractions, which he calls “Insecurity Work.” Our seemingly innocent check-ins with social media, news, sports scores, etc., are nervous tics camouflaged as productivity.
Your wandering focus isn’t random. It’s an adaptation to make you feel productive or generate a little bit of addictive stress (oh yes, you can be addicted to stress) in your life. It’s a way to escape something you’re not comfortable doing, even if that’s just sitting with your thoughts for a few minutes.
Batch and schedule tasks instead of letting them ambush you throughout the day. Eliminate trivial decisions. Reclaim some time and mental energy spent on contemplation, and you increase your capacity to tackle more meaningful, novel, and spontaneous situations.
“Nothing so consumes a person as meaningless exertion.”
~Haruki Murakami, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle (Book)
