The Little Secret of Great Happiness - Doing the worst things first

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

If you want to be happy and enjoy life, you need to do everything difficult and unpleasant right away. This is what psychologists say. Entrepreneur and blogger Sean Kim explained how to apply this technique to life. Lifehacker publishes a translation of his article.

There are several good reasons not to put off unpleasant things until later. First, we have a limited supply of willpower. Having completed the most difficult tasks in the first place, we will calmly proceed to lighter duties.

In addition, according to scientists, the prefrontal cortex (the department responsible for our creativity) is especially active immediately after waking up. But the parts of the brain that control analytical abilities are activated later.

Plus, it's just more convenient. In the morning, there are fewer employees in the office and you have not yet begun to be distracted by numerous calls and messages.

Eat the frog

Popular writer Brian Tracy calls this approach - doing unpleasant things first - "eat the frog." He believes that the affairs and tasks that we usually want to postpone for later (our "frogs") are just the most important and in no case should they be ignored. And so that they do not darken our life, we need to deal with them faster (that is, "eat").

Simplify

Here's some curious data collected with the productivity app:

• we always have unfulfilled tasks;
• the tasks that we do do usually do not take much time;
• often we do not at all what we originally planned.

Why is this happening?

1. We have too much to do. Psychologist Roy Baumeister and journalist John Tierney, authors of "", write that each person typically has about 150 different tasks. Naturally, this causes overload.
2. We are constantly distracted by something. These can be phone calls, emails, or unscheduled meetings.

To deal with this problem, you need to simplify your approach to business.

• Reduce the number of tasks you are going to complete.
• Select only the most important tasks.

The first point is pretty simple. Plan 3-5 tasks for the day. Various applications will help you with this, for example. In it, you can write down your plans and mark what has been done.

But with the second point it is already more difficult. It is not easy to choose what will be most effective in achieving our goals. Such tasks are individual for each person, and, most likely, they will change from day to day. Here are some examples.

• If you want to sleep better, avoid using electronic devices two hours before bed.
• If you want to build muscle, do multifunctional exercises (squats, deadlifts, bench press).
• If you want to learn how to speak a foreign language, study with a native speaker.

These tasks may seem daunting at first, but over time you will notice that you get better and better at it.

conclusions

The concept of doing the worst is primarily applicable not only to daily activities, but also to achieve long-term goals. Of course, in any case, it can be difficult at first, no matter what you want to do: open your own business, lose weight or learn something new. But over time, your results will improve, and this, according to psychologists, will make you happier.

By sacrificing short-term pleasures in favor of long-term goals, we make choices for future happiness. So if you want to be happy, stop avoiding difficulties and start overcoming them now.