The Adventures of LitBoy: Bill Brent's Blog

PROCRASTINATE LATER

Recently I stumbled onto a productivity tip that I feel compelled to share. This is a quick bit of advice on HOW TO GET THINGS DONE EVEN WHEN YOU FEEL UNMOTIVATED.

You know how some days, it is just darn difficult to get started? No matter what, you procrastinate? Maybe you are tired. Or maybe you feel guilty about not starting, so you get irked, and then you tell yourself that you'll get going when you want to, and not a moment sooner.

This is especially likely to happen to me when I have a lot of little chores, such as a bunch of niggling to-do items that have piled up on my desk until my workspace is a mess. When there are a lot of small, maybe distasteful tasks that create clutter, it is easy to rationalize that we will get to them soon enough. Yet there they sit, all the while exerting a subtle but certain tug on our focus, a slow but steady drip, a background energy drain. Sometimes just walking into the space evinces feelings of weariness or futility.

Here are two ways you can deal with that.

1. Set a time limit. A really short one. Let's use the example of doing the dishes. Allow yourself the RIGHT (after all, it's YOUR time and life!) to do less than the whole sink full of dishes. If it is five minutes after the hour, then promise yourself that you will stop doing dishes at fifteen past. By focusing on how to start and complete the process within ten minutes, rather than focusing on the seeming endlessness of the task itself, you can give yourself an energy boost up. Try it and see.

2. Set an object limit. This works when you have a lot of small, repetitive projects, such as email to reply to, or bills to pay. So let's say that you have six bills to pay. Pay one bill today. JUST ONE. Now, get it out to your mailbox for pickup; otherwise, put it wherever you can grab it, the next you pass a public mailbox. If you drive, then put it out in your vehicle, sticking out so that you can't forget it. If you travel on foot, or if you take the bus, then put it with your keys, your cell phone, or any other object that you will have to come into contact with, either when you leave the building or while you are out and about. This makes it much harder to forget about.

Now, the next time you have a few minutes -- maybe it's the next day -- pay two of the remaining five bills. And the time after that, pay the remaining three. Really, it's okay to take three days to pay six bills! Yet it seems like it would be more efficient to deal with all six at once, right? Well, maybe, but sometimes it's easier to find the time to deal with three shorter chores than to deal with one long chore. Even if it ends up taking you forty-five minutes, rather than half an hour, you still did it, right?

Also, when you come into contact with the bills (or any other tangible object), ask yourself two quick yes/no questions:

(a) Do I need to replenish any of my supplies related to this task? (For bills, how about ordering postage stamps, new address labels, or buying blank envelopes?)

(b) Is there a way to make this task less of a hassle next time around? (Maybe you can enroll in online bill pay, or even cancel the service.)

Sometimes you can complete a surprising number of chores on a "bad hair day," simply by tricking yourself into using the ten-minute or the one-object trick. The basic principle, of course, is to break a large task into several small ones that feel less overwhelming.

Most of the advice on time management, personal productivity, and workplace effectiveness describes this "BITE-SIZE IT" principle. However, you can take this rule to the next level by applying it to even smaller, simpler projects that are part of your routine. Objectively, such tasks may be less daunting than the big projects, yet subjectively they FEEL overwhelming when you are having an off day. Procrastinate later!

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Wishing you a beautiful day,

Bill Brent

[this page last updated: 2009.07.17, 12:20 p.m. Hawaii time]

LitBoy.com is the brainchild of writer Bill Brent. If you enjoy this blog, please consider a donation in support of my work. You can send money via PayPal to info [AT] litboy [DOT] com, or better still, use Revolution Money Exchange. Unlike PayPal, RME pays me 100% of your donation. It's quick and easy!


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SWAPPING INSTEAD OF SPENDING TO BUY STUFF

SWAP IT! You may think I'm crazy for saying this, but as long as you own stuff you don't really need, do whatever you can to trade your old stuff at a neighborhood swap meet once a month. Sure, you can use Craigslist for the bigger stuff, if you don't mind total strangers showing up at your house -- possibly to case the joint. Maybe you can meet at at public location instead, such as your workplace -- that can be safer, especially if the security guard is on duty when your buyer shows up.

And there's always eBay. But why should that giant online auction site get such a big cut of your every sale? Yeah, we all procrastinate listing our stuff on eBay, if we ever do it at all. Meanwhile, the freight and postal delivery services raise their rates like clockwork every January, and since the ongoing spike in the price of fuel, usually in between too! Every time they do that, it eats away at your profit.

And what about PayPal? Well, guess what -- that's owned by eBay too. So eBay could be making money off your sale in up to three places: going in the front door, when you probably paid eBay a fee to list it; in the middle of your sale, when your customer goes to buy it with PayPal; and out the back door, when eBay takes its commission from you.

Next, there's the hassle of packing and shipping, and then the concern that your goods might not show up in the same shape they left in. Better know what you're doing when you pack it, or pay a professional shipper! Is it worth much? Maybe you want to buy shipping insurance, too, just in case you are asked to make a refund!

Barter is better. If you can figure out how to trade your stuff for other stuff that you want, this is always a good deal compared to spending your money to get it out that door. Why? Simply because it keeps more money in both your pocket AND the other guy's.

We have been more or less programmed in this culture NOT to haggle about the price of things, and ALWAYS to pay with cash or plastic! To make matters worse, we're all brainwashed to believe that full bags equal happiness! From the time we're old enough to stand up in our cribs, point, and say "I want it!" Clearly, this is not the way to cut costs. Yes, you will have to rethink the way you have done some things up till now. No, it is not as hard as you think.

Look at Craigslist, for instance. No, not in the hook-up-for-sex sections! Seriously, now, you can find online ads where others will be asking for trades rather than cash. Not a lot, but they're in there. There ought to be more. Lately I've even seen folks swapping property for vehicles! In Hawaii, where I live, we have a popular early morning radio talk show with a community announcements section. Plenty of folks here use that call-in time as an opportunity to trade and even give away stuff they no longer want.

Now, if we can make this loose kind of networking work on an island that has under 200,000 total inhabitants, then it has got to be achievable anywhere with a larger population base. Sure, folks on the outer islands of Hawaii have to be a bit scrappier than most, simply because many of us don't have access to some of the services that are easily available elsewhere and taken for granted by others there, such as municipal water and weekly garbage truck pickups. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't learn how to trade goods and services in order to save your money for something you really need it for. There's a reason that "save my money" is such a popular Google search request.

Many of us are also trained to think that "only an expert" can do our negotiating for us. Don't believe it. If you can split a restaurant bill, then you already have the basic skills it takes to drive a bargain that two parties can live with. If not, then take along someone who does. And pay attention when they do it, as knowing how to barter is a valuable life skill. (HINT: Ask for more than what you want, since this gives you some room to bargain with.) If you are a parent, then teach your kids how to haggle, while you're at it.

If you like to meet people, you can throw a yard sale, of course, but why not with the whole neighborhood at once? And why only once a year, the way most of us do it? If you're searching on "save my money" during bad economic times, then stay home and host a seasonal garage sale, or a monthly block sale! Maybe you can even make it across town to swap and sell at another neighborhood sale. Whatever works.

Make it a festive event if you can. Make your own entertainment and save money at the same time! Get a kid you know to videotape the event. Then you can upload your neighborhood block sale, or community association flea market, or homeowner association swap meet highlights to YouTube, so that the rest of us can laugh along with you! It's worth thinking about.

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Wishing you a beautiful day,

Bill Brent

[this page last updated: 2009.07.14, 12:25 p.m. Hawaii time]

LitBoy.com is the brainchild of writer Bill Brent. If you enjoy this blog, please consider a donation in support of my work. You can send money via PayPal to info [AT] litboy [DOT] com, or better still, use Revolution Money Exchange. Unlike PayPal, RME pays me 100% of your donation. It's quick and easy!


Here's the button for that:

HOW TO QUIT YOUR DEAD-END JOB IN UNDER 2 MINUTES

[Note: This is based on an account of a successful job-quitting via phone by my friend Romy, otherwise known as "Leane Roffey Line".]

Highly Replaceable Worker Droid: Hello, Boss?

Boss-Type Unit: Hi, Droid.

Droid: Boss, I quit. Personal reasons.

Boss: But why?

Droid: Personal reasons. You get what I'm saying?

Boss: Nothing to do with the store?

Droid: Right. Tell me what I need to do next.

Boss: Well, I'll need back your name badge and your [employee discount card / I.D. card / etc.].

Droid: Okay. Next week sometime. I'm going out of town until then. I'll bring it by.

Boss: Okay.

[Droid hangs up.]

End of resignation.

Droid's significant other: Hallelujah. I don't think I'd have lasted as long as you did at that nut house.

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Wishing you a beautiful day (and a more care-free summer),

Bill Brent

[this page last updated: 2009.06.20, 6:45 a.m. Hawaii time]

LitBoy.com is the brainchild of writer Bill Brent. If you enjoy this blog, please consider a donation in support of my work. You can either (1) send money via PayPal to info [!at] litboy [!dot] com, or better still, (2) use Revolution Money Exchange. Unlike PayPal, RME pays 100% of your donation. It's quick and easy!


Here's the button for that:

kick-a** blog recommendation

Greetings, friends and browsers of this blog --

This young man comes up with more good content than most ten bloggers combined. This excellent meditation on PERSONALITY DEVELOPMENT is, IMHO, one of his best to date.

-- Despite public appearance, I am a very private person, and so I'm only going to say this once: IT WORKED FOR ME. I stumbled upon the basic principle Glen describes in this post by myself, by mistake, and through a great deal of trial and error. If you are one of the attentive few who truly knew me when I was 19, then 29, then 39, you know that I am not making this up.

-- I also believe that some of us genuinely evolve throughout our lives, whereas most of us merely achieve some fairly superficial levels of change, and never really experience what I would call a deep, integrated growth process.

To put it more bluntly, talk about personal transformation is cheap.

And very lucrative.

-- You may not agree with me on this point, and I will concede: IMPRINTING can happen at any point throughout our lives. While it is never too late, the earlier you start, the better your odds of lasting progress ... toward becoming the person you want to be, rather than the one you are told you should be. Growth and integration oriented change do NOT happen by remaining steadfastly in our comfort zones, however charming and appealing they may be.

That's all I'm sayin'.

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Wishing you a beautiful day,

Bill Brent

[this page last updated: 2009.04.23, 3:05 p.m. Hawaii time]

LitBoy.com is the brainchild of writer Bill Brent. If you enjoy this blog, please consider a donation in support of my work. You can either (1) send money via PayPal to info [!at] litboy [!dot] com, or better still, (2) use Revolution Money Exchange. Unlike PayPal, RME pays 100% of your donation. It's quick and easy!


Here's the button for that:

My Favorite Resolution

Wishing you a beautiful day,

Bill Brent

[this page last updated: 2007.12.31, 4:15 p.m. Hawaii time]

LitBoy.com is a professional blog. Keeping it online costs me $200 per year. That's before paying me for my writing, photography, or anything else I do here. If you enjoy this blog, please use the Tip Jar at the top of this page. Your two-dollar minimum donation helps keep this banner-free site alive. It's quick and easy!

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