Everyday tasks. The work ‘task’ itself seems daunting enough. Then comes the time when you have multiple tasks that you need to achieve in a day. This is followed by a time when you need to achieve a certain amount of tasks every day – which can be more easily referred to as anyone’s everyday tasks. Whenever anyone thinks about the tasks they have to accomplish that day, they end up yawning or feeling tired just thinking about it. I know because that’s how I used to feel, but I’m sure that’s how you feel right now, too. What if there was a way through which we could look at these tasks optimistically? What if we had a fresh approach to these everyday tasks? Is that even possible? Keep reading to find out how.
1. Identify and Define Your Tasks
First and foremost, you need to identify what your everyday tasks are, and define them too. For instance, your everyday task cannot be as simple as ‘use the bathroom’. It can be something that could classify as a proper task, such as ‘make your bed’.
- Watch your routine: watching your routine for a couple of days will help you take note of your everyday tasks and realize which ones are actually tasks.
- Write down your tasks: don’t rely on your memory for this. It’s best to write down your tasks somewhere. In fact, you can even write your tasks down in a schedule manager.
- Describe your tasks: not all tasks are black or white. Some require descriptions as well. It’s best to get as detailed as possible when writing down your tasks and describing them.
In this way, you’ll not only know which tasks you have ahead of you that day but also know their details and every information you require.
2. Specify Why You Need to Achieve Your Tasks
A lot of you may not think of this step as that important or transformative, but specifying the reason why you need to achieve certain tasks of yours in a given time period is a great way to keep yourself motivated for achieving them and to serve as a reminder as to why you need to achieve them in the first place.
- State the outcome: remember that list you made where you wrote your tasks down? Now, you need to state the outcome of each task, too. For instance, if you have written down “do ten pushups” in your task list, you can write the outcome as “achieve a toned body”. In this way, each task of yours will be followed by an outcome, which you will be able to keep track of then and there.
- State the task and the outcome together: just like the previous example, if you write your tasks and their outcomes just next to each other, it will motivate you more into performing your tasks and achieving them. For instance, one may not feel so motivated upon reading “do ten pushups”, but if you read “achieve a toned body” right next to it, you will instantly feel motivated to do those ten pushups.
- Keep track of your achievements: you need to write down how many tasks you have accomplished and when. In this way, if you have a streak of achieving your tasks for, let’s say, five days, your body, mind, and heart will not allow you to break that streak on the sixth day. Moreover, a continuous streak will keep you motivated and passionate for the next day, too.
So this step was all about achievements, stating them, where to state them, and keeping track of them. Remember, tasks without achievements are nothing. Every task you perform has a certain accomplishment after it, and it’s your job to remind your body, mind, and heart about those accomplishments to keep yourself motivated.
3. Switch to Life Organizing Apps
So far, we have mostly asked you to write things down. Be it your tasks, your outcomes, your achievements, writing them down is the only way to remember and keep track of them. But how much can you write? Where can you write? It’s not always so feasible to carry a diary around with you which has your task list in it, so what’s the solution? The best app to organize your life is the solution.
- Keep everything in one place: you write down your tasks in one place, then you write down their descriptions, and then finally, their outcomes. Then, you have to repeat this for the next task and the next one. Most importantly, you need to keep all of these in one place to keep track as well. Sounds difficult, doesn’t it? Therefore, an app to manage work schedule will solve everything for you. You’ll find everything you need just at the tap of your finger.
- Save your time: you no longer have to turn the pages of your notebook again and again, make endless notes in your mind when tracking your routine and accomplishments, or read everything all over again. The best life organizer app will save lots of your time by keeping everything in one place, so that you don’t have to waste your time finding anything else.
- Get additional insights: technology has surely brought great benefits to us all. A life organizer app will give you more insights about your activities, tasks, and accomplishments in the form of graphs, reminders, notifications, etc. What’s better than having your own pattern created in front of you systematically than going through the hassle of making it on your own?
Schedule manager apps, needless to say, have surely changed the game of not only keeping track of your tasks, but also of your accomplishments. If you’re looking for motivation to keep your everyday tasks sorted, just download an app and you’ll be good to go.
4. Learn to Prioritize Tasks
Many times, it happens that we find every task to be of such priority or such urgency, that we end up de-prioritizing other as equally important tasks or stressing ourselves out too much.
- Every task is not important: each task can have some level of importance over the other, but not all of them are equally important. You need to prioritize your tasks accordingly so that you can complete them accordingly too.
- Ask for priority: if you work under someone or for an organization where you’re swamped with numerous tasks every day, you need to ask your superiors for the priority of the tasks assigned. Let’s say you have five tasks for the day; each task needs to have its own priority from first to fifth. Throughout your work day, you will work on your tasks accordingly. This is the most effective way to complete your tasks timely. Even if you are left with one task at the end of the day, you can always take it to the next day because it doesn’t have to be completed on the same day.
- Complete tasks by priority: you need to complete tasks in such a manner that your high-priority tasks get completed first before moving on to the lower-priority ones. It often happens when an individual is only focusing on lower priority tasks first because they’re shorter; they tend to miss out on the high-priority ones. Or if they’re questioned about the higher priority tasks, they start to panic and miss out on the lower priority ones also. Therefore, the best way to go about your tasks is by priority so you can complete them effectively and timely.
Prioritizing tasks by importance is the best way to complete them timely and to know which ones need to get completed first.
5. Take Tasks as Accomplishments
A mistake that all of us make is we take tasks as something that requires a lot of effort and work, and we don’t look at what we will achieve through them. Therefore, a fresh approach to everyday tasks would be to take tasks as accomplishments, and not just tasks.
- Know what you’re doing: don’t do things without meaning. Don’t do things without knowing why you are doing them. Know what you’re doing and why you’re doing it. Once you start doing things with meaning, you will take tasks as accomplishments.
- Reward yourself upon task completion: there are many tasks whose completion doesn’t instantly reward you, but it does reward you later on. You need to give yourself small rewards for their completion to keep yourself motivated. For example, if you need to study 40 chapters for a math exam, your reward for studying all these chapters will only be given once you perform well in your final exam. So, what would motivate you to complete those 40 chapters? Keep rewarding yourself with small gifts upon each chapter’s completion. In this way, you will stay motivated.
- Look at the outcome first before the task: if there’s a certain task that you’re dreading doing, then look at its outcome first. Look how much impact its completion would have on you than not doing it at all. For instance, writing a 10-page essay seems daunting at first, but if you look at the outcome of getting a nice grade in exchange for it, it becomes possible to write.
As established before, knowing why you’re doing your tasks and what the outcomes are of performing those tasks are great ways of keeping yourself motivated to completing them.
6. Keep Yourself Organized
Keeping yourself organized will not only help you approach everything in life with a fresh perspective but also motivate you to do better in life.
- Declutter your space: your surroundings have the most impact on your mind, body, soul, and heart. Therefore, you need to make sure that you’re surrounded with cleanliness and everything around you is in its right place. You can start off small by picking up 2-3 things around you everyday and keeping them in their right place and slowly declutter your space.
- Know where your things are: to keep yourself organized, you need to know where your things are. Your belongings should be exactly where to expect them so that you don’t waste your time looking for them. Let’s say you have a task to write a 1000 words essay, and you can’t find your laptop, what would you do then? You need to know where your stuff is in order to perform your tasks properly.
- Focus on personal hygiene: personal hygiene is important when it comes to keeping yourself organized. When you keep yourself clean and tidy, you have the same perspective for your surroundings too.
Therefore, keeping yourself organized will help you do better in every aspect of your life. Once you give yourself enough love and care, you also learn to give other things the same level of care.
7. Stop Procrastinating
Are you one of those people who try to delay everything until the next day or the day after? Or whenever you think of doing something, your mind always tells you to do it later? If you relate to any of these, then you are also a procrastinator. You need to train yourself in such a way that you stop procrastinating.
- Tell your mind to say yes: whenever you think of doing a task next time and your mind says no, tell your mind to say yes instead. You will have a hard time saying yes at first, but once you start to say yes, it’s no going back.
- Motivate yourself: the mind is a very powerful tool. It can be trained and motivated to help you do whatever you need to do to achieve your tasks. So keep yourself and your mind motivated. Remind yourself why you need to do your tasks and remind your mind to look at the bigger picture.
- Think of the outcomes: as mentioned before, thinking of the outcomes and accomplishments before thinking of the tasks is the best way to motivate yourself to complete them, and that’s exactly what you need to do as well.
Procrastinating is something most people are guilty of. But once you train your mind, you can start doing things timely.
Conclusion
Your mind is the greatest tool when it comes to taking a fresh approach to everyday tasks. You need to train it accordingly and remind yourself of the right things in order to take a fresh approach to your everyday tasks.
