Time Chunks
By Tana M. Mann Easton, Lead Efficiency Engineer
Sometimes when I have a long, physically demanding task to do, my brain rebels and tells me there’s no way to finish the task. For example, when more than a foot of snow needs to be shoveled out of our driveway or a tree falls down in the backyard or the mountain of totes filled with Christmas decorations need to be distributed throughout the house and unpacked to decorate for the holiday; my brain has issues. If I allow my brain to think of doing the entirety of the task (shoveling the entire driveway and sidewalks, clearing the entire dead tree, decorating the entire house), my mind shoots back an error code to me that says, “CANNOT BE DONE!” At that point, I change strategies. Instead of convincing myself that I need to do the whole task, I ask myself how much time I could give to the task.
If my brain doesn’t think I can shovel the whole driveway, I’ll convince myself to see how much can be done in one hour. Usually having a parameter of time around the task loosens my reticence enough to get me out the door and starting the task. I’ll start with the most problematic spot, which is usually the end of the driveway where the plows leave a bigger heap of snow to clear than the rest of the driveway. I do what I can for the amount of time I promise to myself, and then I take a break. I might come back out later that same day to finish or another day, but by breaking it down by time I get over the hurdle of my mind telling me it’s too hard and can’t be done.
When a tree fell in our backyard, I had no idea how long it would take to cut it up and clear it out. But my brain very reasonably estimated that it would take a lot of time and energy/sweat. It was another situation where I received a big “CANNOT BE DONE!” error code. So I convinced my brain to see how much I could clear in 30 minutes. Then the following day I did 60 minutes. I kept going out and doing set chunks of time until one day the tree was cleared.
And every year, decorating for Christmas is such a laborious, time-consuming task that my brain balks. But I enjoy having a house decorated for Christmas, so again I negotiate. 2 hours this day, 3 hours this day, 1 hour this day, until the task is complete. If there are time-consuming, labor-intensive tasks that you’re avoiding, try negotiating with your mind. Ask yourself, what if I worked on it for 1 hour? If that feels too long, try 45 minutes. Too long again? Try 30 minutes. Even if you can only stand to work on it for 5 minutes, if you string enough 5 minute days together, any task will eventually be complete.
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