The weather’s finally started to turn warm, bringing a whole new set of challenges to productivity. During the colder winter months, it’s easy to stay in the house and focus on what’s at hand. While there are tons of things to do, the scope of work is more limited than during the warmer months. With the beginning of spring, all the outside tasks, from cleaning the garage to mowing the lawn to cleaning the gutters to planting the garden all are added to the list of possible chores. And that broader spectrum makes it harder to focus on what needs to be done right now.
As I sit her at my desk, I can see the grass emerging from its winter slumber. I can also see the vast array of weeds that have emerged near the house, let alone on the other 14 acres. I know if I let this go, it’s going to be a huge project, much larger than if I attack it immediately. But I’ve got work to do here inside the house.
What often happens is I’ll set out a list of tasks to work on for the day. I usually do that at night, so I’m not thinking as much about what needs to be done outside. I’ll focus on the inside work while I’m making my list. Then the sun rises and I’m reminded of all the outside tasks and they tempt me.
Sometimes I’ll skip the indoor, planned tasks and attack a task outside. But just like the old Lays Potato Chip commercial, I can’t start just one. I’ll be working away on one job and realize another one needs done. Because of shiny object syndrome I’ll jump into the second task without finishing the first. Then a third beckons me…and off I go down that rabbit trail. By the end of the day I often have six to ten different projects started…and nothing finished.
It’s a huge problem.
To combat shiny object syndrome this spring and summer, I’m striving to use my planned lists more. I’m also going to make more of an effort to put all the outside tasks into projects. Then I’ll plan when I’m going to do the projects. I’ll still leave room for things like clean up the yard which can be comprised of a myriad of semi-defined tasks, but for the most part I’m going to work really hard to limit myself to starting and finished projects before I delve into another one. To aid in that endeavor, I’m going to up my game in capturing the tasks needing to be done. I know one of the reasons I tend to attack a shiny object task is because I fear I’ll forget it needs to be done. I’ve been proven right too many times. By capturing the task into my list, I’ve got a much better chance I’ll remember it and I can schedule it for a later time.
In reality, I’m trying to improve my task capture throughout everything I do, so this isn’t really a change in my overall approach, but it’s a dramatic shift regarding my outside work. For some reason I’ve always treated that differently than the work I do inside the house. And the differentiation in treatment has gotten me into more trouble than I care to recount.
So I’m off to work in the yard now, with a specific list of tasks in hand. And I’m setup so I can capture new tasks via Siri with my iPhone.
Let’s see how this turns out!