Different problems, same solution
Peter White · 18 February 2010
Here’s two common problems:
- Task avoidance. You know what you should be doing. But you don’t do it. It gets embarrassingly overdue. Shame & guilt lie heavy. But still you can’t get started.
- Perfectionism. You’ve already put hours and hours more into a project than you should have. But it’s still not done. There are final adjustments. You’re waiting on some critical element. You can’t let it go.
They look like very different problems. Yet the same solution can work in each case.
You set aside an amount of time – which can be quite brief, as little as half an hour or less. You commit to doing something on the project, but only for the agreed time period. To emphasise that, you set a timer. When it goes off, you stop. You get on with something else. If necessary you set aside another short time period to work on it again.
Before long, the problem’s disappeared. Avoiders find they’ve progressed the job. Perfectionists find they’re ready to sign it off.
The method is known as time boxing. There’s no shortage of analysis as to why it should work. Procrastinators discover that the task wasn’t actually so bad. The anxiety was all in their mind. Avoiders get a reality check about how long they’re spending. That objective view provides what they need to move on.
Dave Cheong has a thoughtful post on it. Merlin Mann has a typically knockabout approach, suggesting very short dashes – even as little as a minute.
Luciano Passuello calls time boxing the most effective time management tool he knows of. And has the neat idea of ending the time box period with a downloaded round of applause. Or maybe not.
Tags: avoidance, perfectionism, time boxing
9. March 2010 at 10:46
Interesting to recognise that I’ve been developing this approach with some success in ironing over the years. It’s a hateful task, but then it’s also hateful to have piles of crumpled clothes looking at you and making you feel guilty. I started operating Merlin’s combination of time and unit approaches – saying right, I’ll do three minutes no more, then go and have a cup of tea and a biscuit. Then I come back and do two shirts, no more, and then read a chapter of my book. As Merlin suggests, you often end up saying actually you know, I’m good for another 10 minutes, by which time you’ve started to make an impact on that pile, so by your next short burst you feel you might as well finish the job.