Stop Neglecting To Create Systems For Recurring Tasks

Most people have to deal with tasks that repeat on a monthly, weekly or daily basis. Some deal with those that repeat several times throughout the day. For example, you might be responsible for generating the same set of reports for your boss each morning. Or you might have to respond to the same set of questions from prospective customers. If you schedule a lot of corporate meetings, you may find yourself regularly fielding questions about their duration and content, along with the names of the participants. Even if these fielding such questions are easy to do, they take time. And that’s time you can’t spend getting other things done. For that reason, it’s important to have systems in place. They can help to streamline the completion of these recurring tasks. For example, suppose you maintain a blog. Chances are, you use Wordpress or a similar content management system (CMS). Such software was developed to systematize many of the activities involved with posting a blog or article online. The systems you create may be much simpler depending on the repetitive tasks you want to streamline. For example, suppose one of your job responsibilities is to email job applicants about their resumes. Many of your emails will probably contain similar content. Why not create a template or form letter you can use for this purpose over and over? Most people who face a large number of recurring tasks during the course of their day aren’t doing enough to systematize them. Consequently, their productivity suffers a major blow.

How This Bad Habit Hurts Your Productivity 

Without systems to streamline them, tasks that recur waste your time and mental energy. They demand your attention every time they need to be addressed. That affects your productivity in at least four ways. First, repetition leads to boredom. Over time, that can siphon your motivation and eventually set the stage for burnout. Second, when you address recurring tasks on an individual basis, you increase the degree of variability in your workflow. That variability erodes your efficiency, which, in turn, makes you less productive. Third, you’re more likely to make mistakes. Every task carries with it the possibility of committing an error. That’s an acceptable risk when you’re working on complex projects. Errors are expected. But they’re difficult to justify for recurring tasks. After all, the fact that they repeat implies you possess a high level of proficiency in completing them. In reality, your boredom makes you less alert and more prone to making mistakes. Fourth, not having systems in place to handle repetitive tasks forces you to spend too much time on them. Consider our earlier example of emailing job candidates about their resumes. Depending on the size of your company and the number of open positions, you could potentially waste hours each day addressing this single responsibility. The action steps in the following section will help you to systematize the repetitive tasks that are currently hampering your productivity. It’s likely you’re already using a number of systems to streamline parts of your workflow. If that’s the case, the following tips will help you to make them even more efficient.

Action Steps

 1. Create a list of tasks that recur on a daily, weekly and monthly basis. This list will give you a bird’s-eye view of such items and help you to brainstorm ways to streamline them.

 2. Track how much time you spend performing monotonous tasks. This will motivate you to create systems for them. Setting up systems requires an investment of time. Many people postpone doing so because they don’t realize how much time they waste addressing repetitive tasks. Tracking your time solves that problem. It will reveal how much of your day you actually spend on these items.

3. Batch recurring tasks that cannot be systematized. By doing so, you’ll reduce the mental energy you spend completing them. Many repetitive tasks are small and take a minimal amount of time. But when addressed throughout the day, they serve as interruptions to your workflow. For example, you might spend 10 minutes each Wednesday afternoon emailing your company’s newsletter to people on your mailing list. Or perhaps you spend a few minutes each Friday calling a particular vendor to order supplies. These tasks take little time, but can disrupt your momentum. Worse, there may be no way to automate them. Batch them together and work on them during a single block of time. Rather than spending 5 minutes here and 10 minutes there, set aside 45 minutes and complete all of the tasks during the same work session. You’ll reduce distractions, improve your concentration and increase your efficiency.

 4. Look for software that can help you to address recurring tasks. I mentioned above that Wordpress, as a content management system, streamlines the chore of posting new blogs and articles to your website. That’s an example of using software to systematize a recurring task. You still have to create the content (i.e. the blog or article), but Wordpress allows you to skip many of the technical steps involved with posting and formatting it. Likewise, there’s probably a way to automate, or at least streamline, some of your recurring tasks with software. For example, if you spend time each day transferring data from one spreadsheet into another, can you use formulas to do that job for you? If you’re currently emailing customers to offer help after they purchase a product from your company, can you set up an online shopping cart to send out such emails automatically? One of the core advantages of using software is that it streamlines our workflow. For example, I’m currently writing this chapter in a program called Scrivener. It organizes my content and makes exporting the material into various file formats a snap. No longer do I waste time wrestling with Microsoft Word. Likewise, seek software that can help automate or streamline repetitive tasks that are currently disrupting your day.

 5. Use Todoist to schedule recurring tasks. Reminding yourself to address these items is a chore unto itself. If you find yourself writing down the same task on each day’s to-do list, realize there’s a better way. I mentioned Todoist in Day 3. I strongly recommend using this tool. It allows you to schedule repeating tasks so you’ll be automatically reminded to handle them whenever they’re due. For example, suppose you need to complete a newsletter for your customers by the end of each Wednesday. In Todoist, create a new task and enter “every Wednesday” into the “due date” field. Todoist will add that item on each Wednesday’s to-do list. You no longer have to manually add it. By the way, this is an example of using software to streamline recurring tasks - in this case, adding repeating items to each day’s to-do list.

6. Perform a monthly audit of your recurring tasks. Review each item and ask yourself whether it is essential to your goals. Tasks that recur often occupy a workflow blind spot. We do them over and over, and thus grow accustomed to doing them. They become part of our routine. They become a habit. We seldom question whether they need to be done. We simply do them. There may be items on your to-do list that can be eliminated without consequence. If so, purge them and save yourself time and energy.