Open Writing

Ever hear someone admit of a task 'it's in the too hard basket'? It will never actually get done. It's planned but even if it gets started, or started yet again, it'll never get completed.

At home we often have a list, maybe written down, more often a mental list, of things we must get around to doing or finish off when we have the time.

Yet often when we have the time, we don't do it. When we have spare hours, we may tell ourselves that we deserve to relax, or blame a million other things but what we don't do is plod our way through that task. It stays in our 'too hard basket'.

Usually the reasons are emotional if we analysed them. It's something we don't actually know how to do, or we feel incompetent at, or we don't really feel safe spending the money, or we resent the person who stands to benefit so we don't really want to deliver, or its physically uncomfortable, cold, wet or tiring . . . the list goes on. But often it is ourselves who stand to benefit and we are losing out by not tackling the too hard basket. So how can we change that.

This is my technique—see if it fits into your life!

Like a lot of people, in my home office, I have a computer, monitor, printer, Internet connection but I also have 3 wicker baskets. They have large clear signs hung above them, IN, OUT and VERY HARD.

As I open the mail, bills, letters I will reply to, adverts that I'm actually going to read, prescriptions to fill—these all go into the IN basket. Every weekend I grab a cup of tea, sit down and process the IN basket. I write cheques and letters, pop them into envelopes and drop them into the OUT basket ready for dropping in the post box on the way to work. Don't you still like the satisfaction given by the plopping of something completed into the OUT basket? It makes me feel virtuous, efficient, and completion feels good!

Tax forms, superannuation reports, letters from the solicitor, all these go straight into the VERY HARD basket. Anything that pops up in life that's horrible to do but needs to be done, gets written onto a piece on paper and popped into the VERY HARD basket as well. Like apologising to the person down the street I lost my cool with; going to visit the relative who always complains for a minimum of three hours; visiting the dentist; fixing the fence; or arranging for extra plug sockets to be put in the study.

Then there's the reward system, a treat for each very hard task accomplished. Some have to be big treats, the annual tax can take three full evenings of slog and stress, a chocolate bar just isn't going to cover it! So there's the VERY BIG REWARDS idea file. A weekend away; a day in bed with magazines and chocolates; a full body aromatherapy massage; a dinner in a restaurant tonight . . .

The rewards vary, I dream things up, write them on a voucher that looks like a cheque (created it on the computer). I match the reward to the VERY HARD task and then paperclip them together and pop the task and reward into a big envelope. They look less frightening that way, because instead of a jumble of assorted paper growing and filling the basket, there is a neat set of individual envelopes, one task per envelope, labeled with simple titles like 'Tax'.

Then, when I'm feeling competent, calm and capable, I make a space in the day and on the desk. I open an envelope, pin my reward voucher up where I can see it and plunge into the VERY HARD task.

In this way I patched up a quarrel with a work colleague—had a day at the beach as a reward for that one. I read the small print of my superannuation schemes and found out what happens if I take six months off to go overseas—lobster dinner for that one. I swapped mortgages and saved several thousand dollars—it was a big task with lots of irritation, so a weekend away in the wineries for that one.

Nothing sits collecting dust and guilt in the too hard basket in this house. I've taken the phrase the 'too hard basket' and made it into a physical reality, but removing the 'too'.

© Andrea Roberts