We can do easy things
When you're having a hard time doing simple stuff, ask yourself this one question
I shouldn’t be writing this right now. I should be dealing with a prickly online return. I ordered one of those Oura rings last week and chose the wrong size. So I need to exchange it for a bigger size, but I don’t know which one. It’s a complicated exchange that may require talking to a real person. Resolving this issue would probably take 15 minutes, but I don’t want to do it.
The writer Glennon Doyle popularized the phrase “We can do hard things.” And I’m totally on board with that sentiment. We can. I can. I’ve run half marathons and long relay races, raised three kids, reinvented myself professionally, and more. Heck, I’m the queen of hard things. What I find really, really difficult these days is the easy stuff. Apparently, I’m not alone.
But unlike @kenzhadley, I have finally learned something from this phenomenon. This is a classic case of procrastination, which social scientists define as “delaying a task for a maladaptively long time.” Yup. This feels pretty maladaptive.
Growing up, I thought procrastination was a time management problem (though we probably wouldn’t have called it that in the 1980s.) But I was wrong. “It actually has not very much to do with time management,” explains Fuschia Sirois, a psychologist and professor who focuses on self-regulation at Durham University in the United Kingdom. “It has to do with mood management.” So when I avoid simple tasks, I’m not struggling to manage my time, I’m struggling to manage my mood.
Understanding that was an epiphany for me. A lot of the stuff I avoid is unpleasant, even if only mildly so. I like writing. It makes me happy — even though it’s hard. Dealing with customer service makes me grumpy — even though it’s easy. So when I have to choose between doing something hard that I like and doing something easy that I dislike, I’m going to choose the former.
The fact that my struggle is an issue of mood management also explains why no time management trick or organizational hack has ever helped me solve this dilemma. As any parent of a toddler or teen knows all too well, you can’t solve an emotional issue with logic. You can only solve emotional problems by addressing emotions.
So, procrastination is an avoidance behavior. We use it to avoid the emotions involved in doing things we don’t want to do. But here’s the kicker: by avoiding those difficult emotions, I’m also denying myself the pleasant emotions that come from checking those items off my to-do list.
Which brings us to my new favorite trick. When I find myself avoiding some small but unpleasant task, I ask myself a simple question:
“How will I feel after I do this thing?”
For example:
"How will I feel after returning this ring and ordering the sizing kit? Great.
How will I feel after meeting this work deadline? Relaxed.
How will I feel after filling out my kid’s camp forms? Relieved.
In other words, the satisfaction/calm/relief of crossing the easy thing off my list has to outweigh the pain of procrastination. And way more often than not, it does.
But wait, as they say in the infomercials. There’s more. One of the coolest things about this trick is that it doesn’t just help me do the simple stuff I’ve been avoiding. It also helps me not do the little things I shouldn’t do.
Last week, for instance, I was traveling and I ate out alone. I was at one of my favorite spots in the city I was visiting. This place has 21 craft beers on tap. I’m a big beer lover, but I don’t sleep as well when I drink, and I had a lot to do the next day. Still, I really wanted a hazy IPA.
So I asked myself, “How will I feel after I drink a beer?” The answer: Not great. Not because one beer would make me drunk. But because one beer might mess with my sleep, which might mean I wouldn’t get up early enough to have quiet time to write. And if I didn’t write early in the morning, I’d have to skip my workout to write later in the day, and I really needed a good workout.
Of course, I’m elaborating for educational purposes here. I didn’t have to think that hard when the server asked me if I wanted anything to drink besides water. I just asked myself, “How will I feel after I have a beer?” Not great, was my answer. So I skipped it. I woke up early the next morning, got a lot of writing done, and had plenty of time for a long workout.
And, when I finally got home later that night, I dealt with the thorny Oura exchange. It took five minutes.
Also on my mind:
Monday marked the tenth anniversary of the Boston Marathon bombing, committed by two young men who were radicalized into becoming terrorists. In this thought-provoking essay, Myrieme Churchill asks, “What if we treated extremism like a disease?”
First, there was Lofi Girl (lofi hip hop radio - beats to relax/study to). Now there’s Lofi Boy (synthwave radio - beats to chill/game to). Lofi Girl is my go-to when I need background music to help me focus. Still, I’m glad she has a new friend and hope she can finally step away from whatever it is that she’s writing in that notebook and enjoy a well-deserved night out.
What’s the diploma divide? The new fault line in American politics, separating voters who have college degrees from those who don’t.
Please stop telling people what you do for a living. Have better conversations with this cool calendar.
I just discovered Orly BB Créme, a “topical cosmetic treatment” for your nails. It’s very forgiving, dries quickly, doesn’t chip easily, and has just a hint of color. (There are a few options, but I bought the Barely Blanc.) I’m wearing it on my fingernails now, but think it will be a great toenail option for sandal season, too.
This is the story of how one mother’s love for her gay son started a revolution.
My friend Kris introduced me to GetSorted, an app that helps you establish a daily habit of cleaning up your photo library. 10/10 recommend.
Kaci Davis, author of How to Keep House While Drowning, makes a case against the “performance of housekeeping” in this Washington Post piece.
It’s National Poetry Month! Want more poems in your life? Call the dial-a-poem hotline at (385) 342-5374.
And speaking of poetry, I loved You Could Make This Place Beautiful, the poet Maggie Smith’s memoir. The book focuses on the dissolution of her marriage, which was never the same after her poem “Good Bones” went viral. “One day,” she writes, “it hit me. The best things to happen to me individually were the worst things to happen to my marriage.”