Training myself to get things done

When I’m chasing a goal or a challenging task I get very focused. I get so focused that it is hard for me to remember to do things like make dinner, pick up kids from school, or change the loads of laundry. Part of the focus is because I want to complete the project before I get distracted. When lose momentum I’m not sure if I’ll be able to get back to work promptly. I’m much better about working steadily than I used to be, but I still have a tendency to marathon work. Part of the reason I’m better is that I’ve trained myself to install triggers in my brain to remind me of the things that I want/need to get done.

A trigger is a sensory reminder of a task that needs done. The classic example of this is the telephone ring. Pavlov must be laughing at all of us every time we drop what we’re doing to answer the phone. The telephone ring is auditory, but triggers can be visual, nasal, or touch based as well. I suppose you could have taste based triggers, but I’m trying to teach myself to eat less, not more, so I don’t use those. I use a timer beeping at 7:15 every night to remind me that I need to start bedtime for the kids. Every quarter the IRS sends me a report to fill out. When that report arrives, I know it is also time for me to fill out state reports and to send royalty checks. The pile of laundry I see at the bottom of the stairs reminds me to change loads in the machines.

Over the years I have accumulated a vast array of triggers. It has taken a lot of time and patience to set them up and teach my brain what they are for. It also takes time to disconnect a trigger once it is no longer needed, but that is easier because the process is aided by the natural tendency to do nothing unless I have to. The key is to connect a specific task with a specific trigger. The bedtime beeper works really well because it is the only beeping trigger I have. It would work less well if I used the beeper for a dozen different reminders all day. I would quickly become confused exactly what the beep was supposed to remind me of and I likely would slowly teach myself to ignore extraneous beeps. This is why I try to closely link to trigger to the task so that one leads naturally to the other. Time of day (as indicated by amount of daylight and general feel in the air) serve as triggers to get me cooking dinner. This trigger gets seriously thrown off twice per year at the daylight savings time switches, then I have to relearn for a couple of weeks. An alarm gets me out of bed. The note in my planner triggers me to prepare for an appointment. The homework paper laying on the counter triggers me to call that teacher. Sometimes I even turn my wedding ring around on my hand so the stone bothers my palm as a short term trigger; to remind me to make a phone call as soon as I’m done switching laundry for example. All of these triggers and many more help me keep track of tasks.

Triggers do not always work perfectly. If multiple triggers go off simultaneously I feel harried and stressed. Ever had the phone ring at the exact moment that someone knocks at both front and back doors while a child is shouting “mom”? I have. My brain froze for a moment while I sorted what to manage first. The more triggers I set in my brain, the more likely I am to have moments like that. Triggers can also create clutter. If I look at a planner page full of reminders, I can feel overwhelmed and not sure where to start. If I leave out a paper to remind me of tasks and then leave out three more papers to remind me of three other tasks, pretty soon my desk is covered in paper and I can’t find anything that I need to do. Also if my day is completely full of triggers, I can spend all day running around like a trained poodle, trying to respond to these commands I’ve set for myself.

Another problem is when a higher priority trigger interrupts a previously triggered task. Then I switch to the new task, but often forget to reset the trigger for the lower priority task. Then the task falls out of my brain completely and is forgotten, usually until it becomes urgent. Of late this has been the fate of laundry. Never done until someone runs out of underwear. This is also how my keys sometimes get lost. Usually walking in the front door triggers me to put my purse and keys in their assigned place (A basket near the front door.) But if something distracts me as I walk in, then the keys end up in one of two or three alternate locations (coat pocket, kitchen counter, telephone counter.) If the distraction is sufficiently unusual or urgent then the keys sometimes end up in very odd places (linen closet, bathroom counter) and it takes me considerable searching to find them.

I’m certain that I haven’t covered all the aspects of setting triggers in my brain. But writing this out has helped me to see where they are, how they work, and why they sometimes fail. Many of the triggers in my head are things to remind me to remind the kids to do stuff. Hopefully I can now apply this greater understanding toward setting some triggers in my kids’ brains so that they can remember to bathe, brush teeth, and pick up toys without me always having to require it. I need to shift some of these triggers from my head to theirs.