Power Hour - How to deal with long lists of "unimportant" tasks

In an attempt to get a lot of shit done, I have done what many books and productivity systems have recommended over the years, which is to create a “todo” list and I’ll do my best to work through that.

The interesting thing is that the longer I stick to one of these systems, the longer that list gets of things that just don’t ever seem to get done. Ughh, how annoying.

Usually it’s the less important tasks, or things I just don’t REALLY want to do and won’t have a severe effect if I put them off. It could be something like, “write that e-mail to my buddy,” or “search for a dentist that is closer for my regular checkups.”

I have a pretty big procrastinator tendancy, which is helpful when I am given deadlines and constraints. I can do great work under pressure, but these tiny tasks just find ways to annoy me week after week as they pile up because I have “other more important” things to do.

In order to combat this issue, I have come up with a strategy called Power Hour.

Simple

It’s really as easy as this…each day (or sometimes every few days) I’ll just schedule in an hour where I scramble and try to knock out as many of these little “unimportant” tasks as possible.

It’s actually kind of fun sometimes. I’ve made it into a bit of a game to see how much I can do. There is no real feeling of loss if I don’t do these tasks, but they have a huge happy feeling for marking them off as “done.”

The way it works, is when you are planning out your days or week, identify when something isn’t extremely important and stick it under a “Power Hour” list. You can safely stop staring at that huge list of never complete tasks now, and only pull it out during your scheduled times.

Woot. Let me know if you guys come up with any similar ways to get through those small tasks without them bleeding into your main focus or stressing you out each week.