Hello,
There is a saying: "Life is unpredictable, eat your dessert first".
This has always amused me, not because it is actually what I believe is a good advice, but it parallels the actions of the majority.
This attitude is also the reason why those people are fundamentally unsuccessful. They put their future in the hands of others when they do the easy thing first. Those who tackle the difficult first get to be the top performers. I believe the ratio between the former and the latter is 90% to 10%.
What truly makes life difficult is swapping priorites: Putting what you most enjoy ahead of what you you actually need to do, but could put off doing. This is the salesman who knows he should make 20 calls to new prospects, but instead he spends the afternoon on the golf course with an existing customer or even a buddy.
Why not get the difficult stuff out of the way first? Concentrate on it and get it done. Put all the "tedious" stuff first in the calendar ahead of the fun stuff. This encourages one to focus on getting really good at it, thereby reducing the time spent doing it. Funny thing is that the more one does this, the more enjoyable it gets. Most of the time not enjoying doing something is because of lack of expertise, stemming from lack of practice doing it.
I myself love to wash dishes and iron shirts. Really exciting stuff, I know! This was not always the case. At one time I hated these activities. I just decided that the only way to handle it was to "get them out of the way"; to get so good at them that what was 30 minutes of drudgery now takes 5-6 minutes. The joy came as I learned to do them well. The better I get the more I enjoy it.
So, set up your day to tackle at least one or two of the more difficult tasks first. Do this on a gradient and work towards putting every difficult task ahead of the fun ones. One day you will run out of "challenging tasks". When that happens, you can start raising your game, looking to "kick it up a notch".
Have an awesome week
Malcolm
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