Jump Start: Self Care September: Day 9

It’s Day Nine of this Jump Start month, and it’s Day Two of Get Organised & Motivated Week. Today is about all those tasks that are kind of important-ish, but seem to hang around forever and never quite seem to get done.

Today’s activity is to burn through the backlog at the bottom of your To-Do list. It’s a very simple activity, and ideally you should allow an hour to do this. However, if you’re really up against it today you can devote 15 minutes to it instead, or catch up with it at the weekend.

To get started, decide whether this is going to be for clearing your work backlog or your personal backlog.

Next, work out the size of the list of things you need to get around to doing. This is easy for me as I have a section in my work diary where I write stuff down as I go along, but you might have a collection of Post-it notes, some things written on a dry-wipe board, or notebooks – or it might be a random jumble in your head.

Now write your list out, putting the smallest / quickest task at the top, and the longer tasks at the bottom. Break any larger tasks up into several smaller ones.

Set a timer, and get going! Tackle the smallest tasks first, and start working your way down the list, trying not to get distracted or sidetracked. If you get stuck for whatever reason, move on to the next task below instead.

Tick off everything you manage to get done during the hour, and you should end up with a nice sense of achievement. While most of us won’t be able to clear an entire backlog in one go, you’ll be surprised how much you can get through in just an hour.

If this technique works well for you, schedule in another backlog-busting session for next week.

I have a huge page of tiny bits and bobs that need doing, most of them should only take a couple of minutes, and I’m going to concentrate on those today to get some quick wins. No more putting it off…