In the mornin you go gunnin' for the man who stole your water (Steely Dan)

Photo by Thomas Bormans on Unsplash

Recently, at morning tea in the staffroom, we were discussing to do lists and my aversion to them.

Instead, I subscribe to the 'touch it only once' policy. That is, confront the email/task/incoming and either: throw it away, file it, delegate it, or action it.

I aim to do this but sometimes the task remains uncompleted, or an email ends up as sitting in my inbox 'pending' later action (I hate those ones).

I have reports to check this weekend and I'm keen to complete that task asap. I'm at the mercy of my senior teachers though and I don't want the task to consume my weekend or hang over my head.

In an article about unfinished tasks that I read just now, psychologists Oliver Weigelt and Christine Syrek back me up on this. It's not rocket science - but they discovered that 'leaving assignments unfinished over the weekend causes people to ruminate on the unfinished tasks, which leads to difficulty switching off from work'.

The researchers found that spending a little time over the weekend finishing tasks or preparing for the following week could prevent rumination and stress. Describing it as “closure”, they noted that ticking a task off the list then made it easier for people to enjoy their remaining time off.

As it happened, I was really tired after two days in Gisborne so I had Saturday off. Unfortunately, the uncompleted task was on my mind as predicted and then Sunday became a catch-up day. 

Which worked out well because I was able to start Monday reasonably up-to-date.