Eat the Frog for Breakfast on Tiny Task Day
What’s the first rule of Tiny Task Day (TTD)?
Don’t talk about TTD. No, wait that’s the first rule of Fight Club.
Try again, what’s the first rule of TTD?
Get a kick ass partner. No, wait that’s Rule #7 of Zombieland.
The first rule of TTD is …make a list.
Handwritten lists are the best.
I love lists and handwritten lists the most. I love writing lists and then crossing stuff off the list.
I digress – what is a tiny task? Tiny tasks are things you need to do that take less than 15 or 20 minutes to complete. A tiny task might contribute to a project or a much bigger task but it stands on its own. Tiny tasks are non-recurring or recur at such irregular intervals that it’s hard to predict when or if they need to be done.
A daily, weekly or monthly task is ‘recurring’. Unloading the dishwasher is a recurring task. Putting the bins out for collection is a recurring task. Cleaning the accumulated receipts, coffee cups, spare coats, empty water bottles and candy wrappers out of your car is a tiny task. Only needs to be done once in a while, takes less than 20 minutes and is complete. So that’s clear now.
Every so often, I give myself a tiny task day. It’s a great tool for productivity and breaking through the procrastination barrier.
A tiny task can have a level of annoyance and irritation disproportionate to the time needed to complete it. Talking to a call centre to say cancel a membership or subscription is a tiny task – you might go over the 20 minute limit – so lets say it SHOULD be a tiny task. Or going on line and engaging in a multiple step process is a tiny task. But both of those can be mighty annoying. Any so our old friend procrastination crops up. Even if it costs us money, we still procrastinate.
An example of a tiny task I procrastinate – unsubscribing to Apple Music. I am ambivalent about Apple Music. I have subscribed and unsubscribed on average once a year for the last three years. Yes, that’s since Apple Music was founded three years ago. It’s easy to subscribe and annoying to unsubscribe. I Google ‘how to unsubscribe from Apple Music’ and then follow the steps.
Tiny tasks are unlikely to have an externally imposed deadline. If the tiny task is difficult or annoying or inconvenient a tiny task might go undone for months. This brings us to the second rule of TTD – eat the frog for breakfast. Mark Twain said,
“Eat a live frog first thing in the morning and nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day.”
Do the thing you least want to do first and your day will improve.
Find a paper and pen, write your list, figure out which tiny task is your personal live frog. Get on with your own tiny task day.