Conquer Your Fear [of Daunting Tasks]

When people say they don’t have time do to something, it’s never really true. Time is always there, but it’s all about priorities. This is also true in relation to our personal lives, friendships, and relationships. When somebody says they would love to meet you, but they don’t have time for it, it actually means that you’re pretty low on their scale of priorities, and maybe it’s time to rethink your relationship.

Nowadays, we all have multiple tasks to deal with, both work and non-work related. When we try to make time for them, we typically first pick the ones that are easiest to get done. Instead, it’s a good idea to have your to-do list arranged by priority. There is a chance that you can attach a high priority to several small tasks, just to “get them out of the way”, before you proceed to deal with the more complex ones. Other times, certain items can be given a higher priority because they’re “low-hanging fruit”, so you can get some quick results to relieve some pressure from higher-ups and build your reputation. However, it’s a good idea to split your tasks based on importance and urgency (say, looming deadlines).

One of my mom’s favorite Russian proverbs is “Let your eyes be scared, but make sure your hands work on the task”. Some English equivalents might be “You never know what you can do till you try” or “Do not be faint of heart, have a go and you will be surprised at your own abilities”. If a task is daunting, it can be intimidating or overwhelming in a way that makes you not even want to try to do it. Once a daunting task is complete, you will no longer describe it as daunting, but instead call it a job well done.

Stephen Covey, in his “7 Habits” book, calls this “eating frogs” – doing something unpleasant that you would typically avoid doing. Apparently, it’s a reference to Mark Twain, who once said “If it's your job to eat a frog, it's best to do it first thing in the morning. And if it's your job to eat two frogs, it's best to eat the biggest one first.” This might be because it’s a boring task or a daunting one – it doesn’t really matter why you don’t want to touch it with a ten-foot pole.

When I have to do something I’m afraid of even staring at, I like to use this mind trick that might help you as well – I imagine it as a sky-diving exercise, where all the fear you need to conquer is one small step out of a plane’s door, and then there is nothing more to hold you back or bring you back into the comforting, yet relative, safety of the plane’s cabin. So, I step out of that figurative plane by, say, making a phone call I don’t want to make or starting working on an unpleasant task and eventually bringing it to a resolution. Whatever it is, I get it done. It may not be perfect at the end, but it’s way better than procrastinating endlessly and leaving it untouched for ages.