How to get "everything" done without burning out
A gentler, anti-hustle culture approach to productivity
At some point in my past life as a home buyer and seller, I learned the term “deferred maintenance.” This is realtor-speak for when property owners neglect little fixit tasks for so long that they become bigger problems, like a sagging porch that could have been mended in a weekend if dealt with promptly, but now requires a contractor and thousands of dollars to put right.
Confession time: My life has a lot of deferred maintenance, especially coming off several years of health- and work-related overwhelm.
My list of stale to-do items is long, and the most stubborn thing on it is “file papers”. This has been rolled over from one week’s to-do list to the next so many times I might as well get notepads printed with it as a header.
I am constitutionally ill-suited to paperwork. Really, really cannot bear it. I can’t seem to file things consistently no matter how intentionally I set my folders up. Reading official documents makes me feel like I’ve got ants in my brain.
I don’t know if this is because I’m a “creative” person, or simply because I am, as all humans are, secretly an animal pretending to be something other than an animal. We did not evolve to fill out forms. (If filling out forms comes naturally to you, well, that’s cool, how very adaptive of you, and perhaps you can also fly?)
But, like it or not, we must maintain the systems that sustain us, whether that means chopping wood and carrying water, or filing a quarterly workers’ comp payroll return. (Hard ewwww!)
Also, letting unpleasant tasks slide doesn’t actually feel good. Every time I see that stack of unfiled papers weighing down my desk, I shudder, as if accusations and threats are printed on every page: You Are Not a Proper Grownup. Worse, the longer I ignore it, the bigger it grows.
As my burnout symptoms have abated somewhat in recent weeks, I am feeling better able to tackle stuff like this. I woke up this Sunday morning reasonably well-rested, with a fridge full of food, an empty laundry hamper, and a clear calendar. No excuses.
But—and this is very important—I am still in a season of extreme self-care. Maintaining a low-stress to no-stress state is central to my recovery. How to protect my peace while also dealing with all the shit I don’t want to do but need to get done?
I devised some crutches for myself, and lo, they helped. If you are, like me, a fledgling member of the anti-hustle-culture resistance, I offer them to you as a gentler form of productivity inspo.
Step one: Make a “could do” list. Do a brain dump of everything you might do with your day/weekend, including routine essential chores and errands, bigger non-urgent projects, fun activities, and online research or planning.
Step two: Make “everything” smaller. The best part about to-do lists is crossing shit off them, so let’s do some of that right away. Can you delegate or hire out anything? Or just drop it? If I’m brutally honest, I know there are certain things I am never, ever going to get around to—and nobody is going to know or care. Get that stuff off your to-do list and out of your head.
Step three: Sort your list. I’ve tried all the productivity hacks: Setting rocks. The Eisenhower Matrix. Eating the frog. The 1-3-5 rule. They’re all fine, but I can wriggle out of any of them because, when it comes down to it, I just want to do what I want to do, and I don’t want to do what I don’t want to do. Inevitably this bias for desire is stronger than any framework.
Recently I started using symbols to categorize the items on my list in a different way that works with my desire bias instead of steamrollering over it, and it has been transformative.
First, I draw a little circle beside the things I must do without fail. I try to keep them to a super-crucial minimum.
Then, I draw a heart beside all the tasks that I enjoy. I know I won’t need to force myself to do these things. I can even use them as a treat after doing a yucky or boring task.
Finally, I draw a triangle beside the things that will make me feel best for having got them out of the way. This is a bit like the “eat the frog” strategy, but instead of viewing the unpleasant task as bitter medicine that I must make myself swallow first, I am focusing on the relief I’ll feel when it’s no longer hanging over me. Amazingly, this simple but effective reframe makes me genuinely eager to reach for the triangle tasks first!
Sometimes a task has more than one symbol beside it, and that’s great! When something is mission-critical and also will bring a sense of relief, it’s easy to prioritize it. (And if an item has no symbols next to it, does it really need to be done at all?)
Step four: Tap into your underlying motivation. Now that you’ve identified your priorities, how to get started? For each triangle task, I ask myself why I want it to get done. I still don’t want to sort and file those papers. But I do want to free myself from the daily shame they are triggering.
We are used to motivating ourselves through external pressure, but there is personal gain behind almost everything we do, even tasks that are mind-numbing, disgusting, or difficult. Tapping into this is powerful. It turns I have to into an honest I want to. So, “I have to file this report by Tuesday or I’ll get a fine” becomes “I want to file this report so I can avoid a fine.” Or maybe you want to make someone happy, feel proud of your accomplishment, or make better use of your garage. (And if you really don’t want to do that thing on any level, see Step Two and ditch it!)
Step five: Just start. If you run warm water over your hands while standing at a sink full of dirty dishes, you are quite likely to wind up washing a dish. I can “just start” tackling a pile of paperwork by picking up one document and looking at it. At that point, I might as well slide it into the filing cabinet. Before I know it, I’m picking a second one off the pile, and so on.
Step six: Sweeten the task. Remember, you are an animal, so bring on the creature comforts. Adjust your lighting, put on some music, sit under a cozy blanket, have some tea and cookies while you work—whatever soothes and delights you. Don’t underestimate the power of your nervous system’s response to comfort and pleasure. It’s a surprisingly effective strategy for sticking with a task.
Step seven: Just stop. This is an all-carrot, no-stick approach to productivity, so the minute I feel truly sick of doing a task—even a task I enjoy—I just stop. Maybe I take a break and come back to it, or maybe I call it a day.
Does quitting at the first sign of fed-upness seem too slack? Will this permissive approach make me lazy and self-indulgent? Maybe, but I don’t think so.
Here’s the thing. Most of us are very, very good at driving ourselves past the point of depletion because our culture equates endurance with maturity, and productivity with moral goodness.
Over the years, my ego, with all its ambitions, wars, and idols, has relentlessly piled demands on my human animal. She has been bullied, shamed, and coerced into taking on many burdens she did not want to carry, and forced to shoulder them for far longer than she could bear, without adequate sleep, support, or respect for her needs and capacities. This way of living will break even a strong mind and body down—and it destroyed my trust in myself.
I’m not doing it anymore.
To live a good life, these two must find a way to be in harmonious partnership. They need each other—but the ego needs the animal more, because she is its feet on the ground. It owes her its protection. All this ruthless efficiency and high performance comes out of her hide, after all.
So, no more demands, only requests placed at her feet and subject to her enthusiastic consent. She can only give a true YES if I am willing to honor her NO. And when she knows I will not take her for granted or abuse her, she will readily contribute her gifts to this life we share.
If that means I go for a walk in the late afternoon sunshine when I probably could have fit in another task, so be it. (In fact, that’s why this email is a day late going out.)
Easy does it.
Oh, by the way, I got my entire stack of paperwork filed, with help from a (slightly smaller) stack of lemon shortbread cookies.
And now, there is some sunshine I must go walk in.