Time Management Tip 4: Nailing the undesirable yet important tasks (5 ideas)

During the month of May, many children in the UK sit down to their SATS tests … and this included my eleven year old daughter whose schooling was a bit interrupted last year.

With a bit of encouragement from me, she spent 6 weeks in the run-up to her SATS, doing 45 minutes revision every day and I mean every day. Whether it was a Saturday or a Sunday, or a weekday evening after school and whether it was sunny or rainy, she knuckled down to Maths, English and Science.

It wasn't without a few complaints, particularly when her younger sister was playing outside with her friends, but a few things really worked in getting her to settle to the undesirable yet important task of preparing for her SATS.


1) Timing:

The prevailing time management advice for dealing with undesirable tasks is to do them as early in the day as possible. Whilst I agree with this to some extent, I think its a bit simplistic to make such a sweeping statement and it's not always helpful to push yourself to do them as early as possible.

It's more effective to approach the timing with an open mind and on a case-by-case basis. Consider the task from different angles, take into account how you feel about it, what the challenges are and how you could make it easy for yourself. Then decide on which time of the day would give you the best chance of doing a good job on it. Depending on the task, it may not always be the best thing to do it as soon as possible or as early in the day as possible.

For example:

Encouraging my daughter to revise for her SATS first thing in the morning when she's sleepy would have been completely hopeless and when she gets home from school at 1530, she really values her down time. So in this case, 1600-1645 was the perfect slot to do the revision, not first thing in the morning or as soon as she arrives home from school.

By committing to do her revision at 1600 during the week, she always got it done (on Saturdays and Sundays, she usually revised at 1030).

2) Rewards:

Could you imagine if when my daughter finished her revision at 1645, I insisted that she now do some chores in the house?

When she finished her revision at 1645, she was always rewarded with a bit more downtime, which  helped her to revise on the days when she was feeling apathetic.

3) Angle Grinding:

On the days when she struggled to settle, my daughter would consider her revision from a number of angles in order to motivate herself. She did this by asking key questions:

What will happen if I don't revise?
What will happen if I do revise?

What's the worst that can happen if I don't revise?
What's the worst that can happen if I do revise?

What's the best that can happen if I don't revise?
What's the best that can happen if I do revise?

By considering the task from a variety of angles, she developed a deep appreciation of how valuable the revision was to her.

4) Positive Re-framing:

On several occasions, she had to remind herself that:

A) She wasn't the only 11 year old having to revise for her SATS.
B)  Forty five minutes revision per day is not that much in the grand scheme of things.
C)  The SATS will pass.
D)  Her younger sister will one day face what she is now facing, so in the end, it's not so unfair that she's playing outside in the sunshine.


5) Accountability:

It helped that she had me and my wife to keep her on track with her revision, to motivate her and help her with the positive re-framing and angle grinding.

Conclusion - nailing the undesirable tasks:

1) Consider the timing with an open-mind, then pick a time to do the task and stick to it. 
2) Ensure you reward yourself when you complete it. 
3) Consider it from various angles in order to fully appreciate the value of doing the task. 
4) Gain perspective by re-framing it. 
5) Draw others along side you to hold you accountable to doing it.  

Thanks for reading

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