Make the most of small pockets of time: the power of a "quick task" list
Small moments pass regardless - why not make the most of them by knowing what you want to do and the context you need to do them
You know those times when you're waiting for something? Like, for the bus, for a Zoom call to start, or for your lunch to heat up in the microwave.
What do you normally do? If you're like me, you might stare off into space and let your mind wander in any number of directions, most of which are rarely productive or truly relaxing. Or you might take out your phone and scroll around for a few moments (or minutes, or perhaps even hours).
After these brief windows of time pass, I often don't feel particularly satisfied with myself or that I've used this time to add very much value to my life. I haven’t done anything productive, but I also haven’t done anything that constitutes looking after myself, and I haven’t actually connected with someone else in my life. These times just simply pass and are quickly forgotten.
But perhaps there's a way to make these small pockets of "dead space" time a bit more rewarding. The key is to be a bit more intentional with this time that's of the sort that’s not necessarily planned into the day. Time management expert Laura Vanderkam frequently discusses this concept of using time more intentionally: she has often credited her ability to read so many books (she reads a lot! 134 in 2017) to simply installing the kindle app on her phone, and reading a book instead of scrolling whenever she got the urge. See here, here, and here for examples of her discussion on this.
The main point is: you can do and achieve a lot in small amounts of time. The catch is that you have to find a way to actually use these times to do the things that are important to you.
I think there are two main factors at play here:
First, you need to have an idea of what you would like to do in these tiny chunks of time.
Second, you need to have the right environment and tools on hand in order to do those things.
For the first part, what I do is have a "Quick task” list on my phone
These tasks can preferably happen in less the 5 minutes, but have a maximum time limit of 10 minutes. This idea is not new - I think I heard something like this on an episode of The Mom Hour (I can't remember the exact episode). They were discussing adapting to having a new baby and one of the hosts said that she made a list of tasks that took only a short amount of time. Here, they were mainly referring to household tasks, but I think that this could be expanded in many different directions. Laura Vanderkam also alludes to the idea of such a list here, in the context of waiting for a call to start.
On my own list I have a few different categories:
Personal: eg a mini exercise session, some deep breathing, reading 10 min of a book (I find non-fiction easier to dip in and out of, but poetry would be a great idea as well, or you could have a list of "to be read" blog articles saved on an app like Feedly), file my nails.
Organisational: eg deleting and organising photos or emails on my phone, decluttering a tiny area of the house (eg a drawer, a small pile of papers), checking in with the bank account and spending.
House: eg cleaning the bathroom (putting on a timer and challenging myself to do it in 10 mins or less), ordering the groceries online, doing a (timed) 10 min tidy.
Kids: eg read them a story (or a few), sing a song with them, take them on a brief walk down the street.
A great approach to devising your own list would be to have a brainstorming session. Think about the different categories of things you would like to have, and whether you would prefer them to be more productivity-based or more self-care based or a bit of both - the only prerequisites are that they must be things that can be dipped in and out of easily and be defined to a brief window of time.
The second aspect involves the environment and tools you need to do the task or activity
This is what David Allen refers to as "context" in his popular productivity bible, "Getting Things Done". He suggests to divide up tasks by the location in which you need to be in order to do them. It's a great idea so that you can then choose from a context-specific sub-task list, in order to narrow down your options to the appropriate situation.
Part of my “Quick task” list on Notion. You can see that I use tags to divide tasks into categories, location, and tools required.
I have my list organised into a table on Notion (if you haven't heard of this free all-in-one workspace then come back for a future post in which I will describe how I use it to organise various aspects of my personal and professional life). In this Notion table I can choose to add tags (but you could just make a "context" column in an ordinary table, or perhaps even have different tables for different contexts). In the same vein as David Allen, I have tags for the environment where the task or activity needs to occur (eg house, office, or out and about), as well as a note on any specific tools I would need to do it (eg phone, computer, kindle etc). This allows me to organise my quick tasks based on the context of the moment I’m wishing to use - for instance, if I was standing at the bus stop I would probably do a quiet, phone-based activity.
Why not try devising a list of quick tasks or activities of your own? Next time you're waiting for the kettle to boil or have been put on hold you'll now have a whole array of various, context-specific tasks to choose from in order to be more intentional with these little windows of time. These moments may then become opportunities for self-care, reflection, and getting things done, rather than minutes that pass by unremarkably and are quickly forgotten.
Do you have such a list of quick tasks and activities? What's on yours? Let me know in the comments below!
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