In theory, we retirees have a lot of free time on our hands. The 8 to 10 hours’ worth of work, we used to put in every day is now suddenly available for us to do whatever we want. That said, every time I talk with retired folks, they all generally say the same thing; “I am incredibly busy, and I don’t know how I managed to fit work in with all my activities years ago.”
Retirees also tell me that a lot of times they don’t get everything done during the day that they intended to – the old, “there are not enough hours in the day”, line of thought.
Why is that I pondered? Sure, many of us now use that free time during the day to just chill, run errands, and catch up on favourite shows from the multiple streaming services we subscribe to… but that really doesn’t seem to eat up all of our previous work hours. The answer I came up with is that we are probably not as vigilant with our time management as we were before we retired.
The ABC’s of Time Management
When I was a young businessperson learning the ropes, one of the first practices I was encouraged to embrace was the adoption of a time management system. This was intended to help me prioritize getting the most important stuff done expeditiously. In the late 1970s, absolutely the most popular system being used was one developed by Alan Lakein and presented it to the world in his 1973 book “How to Get Control of Your Time and Your Life.
I must admit that for me, it was very useful and really did teach me how to prioritize and get the important things done. I only discarded my copy a few short years ago when I got rid of all my business books. Apparently, Bill Clinton still has his. In the brief entry about Lakein in Wikipedia, Bill Clinton is quoted talking about what a powerful impact that Lakein’s book had on his own life.
The premise of the Lakein system, which uses the letters ABC to prioritize projects or tasks is as follows:
Using an ABC list helps you manage your time more efficiently and get more done by organizing tasks in their order of importance. In the ABC list, “A” tasks are ones that are most important and urgent, “B” tasks are important but not as urgent, and “C” tasks are neither important nor urgent.
Obviously, the most important component to all this is that you complete your “A” tasks before you start your way down the list into the “B” tasks. “C’s” are the ones that will either be undertaken down the road, and in some cases eliminated because they weren’t absolutely necessary in the first place. In his system it is also important to lay out specifically what you need to do to help you complete each task.
It’s a very simple system, but it worked well for me and for many others. Later in my business career, I switched to using the Stephen Covey model, but the understanding of the need to prioritize and accomplish things in a methodical order has always stuck with me.
One of the many great things about retirement is that not only do we have all kinds of extra time to get our “A” and “B” tasks done, there’s plenty, or should be plenty, of time to get the “C” things done, or even the “D” and “E” tasks.
Consequently, my creation of the “Tiny Task”.
Tiny Tasks
A Tiny Task quite simply is a very small job that needs doing. It’s one of those sorts of things that you look at it and go, yep, I should do that because it’ll only take a couple of minutes. But I’m busy doing other things right now, so I’ll do it later, when I think about it. And then, you never get to it.
I really had no problem getting all the important things that need to be done because of my continuing sense of the need to prioritize. It was all the small, generally unimportant, jobs that I never get around to. I now include a Tiny Task on my greater to do list every day as you will see.
We are talking about things like sorting out your sock drawer, picking out some old clothes to get rid of, hanging up a picture, moving a couple of pieces of furniture around, rearranging some books on a shelf, etc.
I have even determined there is a time limit for a Tiny Task. It must take no more than 10 minutes to accomplish… Hence the stopwatch as the title image. For me, if a task takes more than 10 minutes, it’s officially a “job”, and, if it is a task that must be done over a couple of days, it is a “project”. Clearly, I am wasting way too much of my precious free time in retirement thinking about things like this.
The first Tiny Task I ever undertook was the tidying up of the small black tray that you see here on my dresser. I typically chucked every small object I thought I needed to keep handy on to the tray. Of course, I lost track of what was there because it was just a jumbled mess.
In less than 10 minutes, unnecessary objects were discarded, and all the necessary little doodads and tiny tools that I knew I might use again one day were put into a Ziploc bag. No fuss no muss. It is unfortunate that I did not take a picture of this little trash heap before I set to work on it.
Tiny Task Example… Fore!
Because I was disappointed that I had not taken a before photo of my little black tray. I decided that I would record my next Tiny Task project, and here it is, the proper storage of my extra golf clubs.
For the longest time, I stored my extra golf clubs in a little space between the freezer and one of the storage shelves in our storage room in the basement. Sometimes they got in the way of getting things on and off a shelf but not a major problem. However, I thought it was messy and disorganized in appearance. This is what happens when you are OCD and have a very strong visual spatial orientation.
I knew exactly where to store the clubs. We have a lockable tall cabinet that I rescued from the demolition of a wing of a school where I once taught. We store most of our sporting gear in this cabinet.
As you can see on the right-hand side of the open cabinet, there is a narrow vertical space that is ideal for the storage of golf clubs. I had been keeping all my other golf paraphernalia in this cabinet already.
This tiny task was almost a “two-fer”. Not only did I end up storing my golf clubs in a good spot, it forced me to dig out a bunch of old fishing gear, like a net… that was taking up a lot of space… that I knew I would never use again. My cousin, who has a cottage and fishes a lot, was happy to take the items off my hands.
And, as you can see, I timed the whole event using the stopwatch on my Apple Watch. Mission, accomplished in under 10 minutes.
For the record, I do include Tiny Tasks in my “To-do” list. I use the “Notes” app on all my Apple devices for notes and lists. That way, changes are constantly updated on all my devices. At one time, we used Notes for our grocery list because we could share the list and it would constantly update on both of our devices. Now we use a specific recipe/food organization app for that purpose.
Identifying and accomplishing these Tiny Tasks has gone a long way to getting many of the lesser “C” jobs that needed doing finished off. Give it a try.
The Spousal Assignment of Tasks… Oh, Oh
You may be wondering, “how did this retiree guy end up relating this back to his time management routines from decades ago. I get the connection, but I don’t see the relevancy to all of this.”
I had a bit of a time management epiphany as I was working on this piece. It had to do with the Love-goddess pointing out a job to me that needed doing. I am very much a “if I see a job needing doing, I usually do it, or at very least, if it is a “B” type of job, make note that I need to get to it at some point soon-ish”. I don’t think the Love-goddess sees it that way. Secondly, she is VERY task oriented and doesn’t understand why I don’t pounce on “important” tasks like she does. “Important” is highly subjective of course.
It was one of those “pointing out” instances recently that caused me to think back to my ABC time management days. It dawned on me that what was happening was that she was attempting to push one of her “C” tasks down to me, and was assuming it would become, or really wanted it to become, an “A” task for me. Forgetting, of course, that her “C” task is quite possibly a “D” or “E” task for me. I also realized that I still automatically prioritize tasks, even if I’m not doing it on a piece of paper using the ABC method. J
In all fairness, if she is pointing out a job to me that needs doing, often it’s because she is unable to do it, or it really is in my wheelhouse. Something like, moving a heavy piece of furniture or solving an advanced level computer problem. Other times, it simply feels like she’s very busy on a project and wants another task to get done without having to do it herself.
I have not spoken to her about this, but I do think it is something worthy of a discussion. Helping one another with tasks is just another facet of what relationships are all about. But it is very important that everyone understands that if you’re asking for help from a partner, they may not have the same burning desire to get the task accomplished that you do.
I do occasionally get a big chuckle out of how the Love-goddess attempts to get me doing things she really doesn’t want to waste her own time on. It is not unusual, if I don’t get to it immediately, for her to accuse me of procrastinating.
At some point in the past, I made the mistake of letting her read a psychological report written about me in my business career that said many wonderful things about me, but also included one semi critical statement that indicated that there was “a slight tendency to procrastinate. It is not particularly pronounced, however, and mostly he will be decisive on the basis of the facts available and commit to a course of action.” Ever since she read that, she has been throwing this “failing” out as evidence as to why I am not getting things accomplished as quickly as she would like me to. LOL!
So, to wrap this up – If you are the sort of person who gets so busy on important tasks that you instruct your loved one to do a lesser task for him or her, you should not be surprised if they’re much less enthusiastic about it than you are. If you’re asking for help… First of all, ask, don’t attempt to assign… then you need to be flexible about how they approach doing it, and when they do it. Remember, we’re all in this together. J
I really did enjoy writing this piece because it did trigger a lovely time management revelation about how I still prioritize all the tasks and jobs I undertake in any given week. I do it unconsciously now, but is clearly an engrained behavior.
And now, I think it’s time to go and do today’s Tiny Task.
