Your New Fly Swatter

Small, pesky tasks emerge throughout the day. A reminder pops up that you have a bill to pay. You get another email. Someone texts you to schedule a meeting.

If a task like this takes two minutes or less to complete, then you should do it immediately. Or at least this is what David Allen, the author of Getting Things Done, argues. He explains that it is typically inefficient to capture, clarify, organize, and store such a small task. But if we leave it incomplete, this is exactly what happens. The task flies around in our heads and saps our attention until it is done. 

I like to imagine these kinds of tasks as flies. It’s better to take two minutes to swat the fly and get rid of it now than it is to let it pester you all day. 

This week I invite you to ask: 

What are the flies that I’ve been tolerating in my life? Which of these flies do I want to start swatting as soon as they fly in? 

God bless,
Dan