The Quarter-Hour Blitz

Over at The Unclutterer, David Caolo elaborates on a trick I also use to tackle (or at least make headway in) tasks that are otherwise easy or tempting to put off:

[I]t's quite easy to work for 15 minutes without getting distracted by something else. Second, I've been amazed at how many tasks only take about 15 minutes. I've been able to completely organize my desk reducing visual clutter, get laundry folded and put away, organize the kids' stuff for the next day, and so on.

I also found that 15 minutes is perfect for doing one of my favorite things: a mind dump. I take a pen, a piece of paper, and the time to simply write down everything that's on my mind -- it is so liberating and productive. Even an overwhelming list of to-do items can seem manageable when you've got it written down. There's a sense of being "on top of it" that comes with performing a mind dump, all in 15 minutes.

I arrived at a quarter-hour a little bit differently than Caolo did. It just struck me one day, near the end of the day, as an amount of time small enough to provide a sort of break from a more intense task, and yet big enough to get something done. Caolo's piece demonstrates the latter quite well.

-- CAV