3 Ways to Nip Nagging Tasks in the Bud

When you’re a solopreneur, you’ve pretty much got to do it all – or at least see that everything gets done one way or another. That means prioritizing projects and tasks. Most of us make sure the revenue-generating activities come first followed by “lesser” responsibilities. But sometimes left undone,  the non-revenue producing, tedious but essential tasks can nag at you – making you less productive on the assignments that are bringing home the bacon. That’s when they deserve more attention than you’ve been giving them. While they might not be as mission critical at face value, they become ever so significant when they become a distraction. If you find they’re minimizing your productivity or detract from your creativity, it’s time to approach them differently than you are now.

Nip nagging business tasks in the bud!

There are a couple of ways to do that…

Put them on a “to do” list
It works for some people. Simply get them off  your mind by putting them on paper, into a spreadsheet, or into a tool like Evernote until you can get to them.

Schedule them on your calendar
Reserve time for each tedious task (no matter how small it might be) on your calendar where you have open slots between your “meat and potatoes” projects. By putting them into your master plan, they won’t hang over your head.

Take weekend morning, afternoon, or evening to get ’em done
Bam! Take the time you need in one fell swoop to swipe them off your slate. If the tasks are relatively mindless, you might even half-watch a movie or a few TV sitcoms while you’re taking care of business. That way it won’t seem quite so much like work.

So what are some of those no fun, but need to be done tasks that might need inclusion in one of those approaches?

• Logging vehicle mileage
• Entering receipts into QuickBooks (or whatever you use for keeping accounting records)
• Generating invoices or logging payments from clients
• Cleaning up/organizing your social media contacts (ie. putting Twitter followers into lists, putting Google+ contacts into appropriate circles, unfollowing contacts who don’t provide valuable content and who otherwise it makes no sense for you to keep on the radar, etc.)
• Accepting Linkedin invitations
• Deleting Spam from your Twitter Direct Messages
• Deleting unneeded files from your computer
• Deleting email messages that you’ll no longer need
• Deduping contacts in your Smartphone

All of them and more can interfere with your powers of concentration and taunt you if left incomplete. So, take action and put them in their place so you can give the important stuff your full attention.

How do you keep nagging tasks from sabotaging your productivity?

By Dawn Mentzer