What is Your Default Task

What's your default task? 

I was chatting with a client earlier this week and we were going over the recalibration for the next 3 to 6 months, and one of the things I started asking him was how he was spending his time. Especially with COVID, everything has been a little bit interesting. All the plans that we had beforehand got really shook up. So I started asking him, and he was saying that he's working 60 to 80  hours a week which is a crazy amount of time. But when we really started to dig into it, it really started to come to fruition that he had a "default productive task," so something that he just goes to because it feels like it's productive, even though it's probably no the most important thing he can be doing. 

Can you guess what it is? His was email. What a surprise. So when we don't totally know what to do and we don't have to strategy really hashed out, when things really only take 5 to 10 hours for a little project but instead, because we don't know exactly what that project is or we haven't made a decision on actually doing that project, that means that we just default, and it's super normal, right? I know one of my defaults is cleaning. I'll be home, especially now that I'm home so much more, I'm like, "Oh, let me just take care of this thing." And it feels productive, not in business productive, but it feels I'm getting something done that has to be done anyway. 

But I want to ask you what your default tasks are, so that way we can start to have some awareness, that if you're sort of always going back to this thing that "feels productive," how can you shift that and either put a time limit on it, so I only do this when... And what we did for him was we actually told him that he could check his email three times a day and that is it, for 30-minute increments, and that's it, and he has to time it. So that way, it doesn't just go back to default mode where you feel like you're doing work, "productive time," but not actually seeing any of the output. So what is yours? 

GO ahead and post in the comments below. I would love to hear what you feel like your default task is, so we can really bring awareness to changing what we default to. Let me know. Have an amazing day.

Summary

Title

What is Your Default Task

Description

What is that one thing that you default to? Something that you work on because it feels productive but in reality, it is NOT (you are procrastinating!)

Tags: Daily Routine, email, productivity

Categories: Daily Routine, Productivity

Hi I’m Jaime. Each and every week I bring you the top business advice from the people who know best.

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