How to Take Control of Your To Do List with a Power Hour

Do you have a to-do list of things that can be done anytime but never get done at all?

I’ve got a stack of papers next to my desk…a phone call to dispute a charge…reporting my car mileage to the insurance company…changing the deductions on a W-2…filling out retirement account paperwork.

Sounds fun, right?

These are all minor tasks that I’m dragging my feet to check off my list. I know I would feel so much better if I got it all done in one sitting.

So why not?

Gretchen Rubin talks about how she started making a Power Hour into one of her habits. She decided to dedicate one hour each week to work on the “nagging tasks” on her to do list.

This is a fantastic strategy when you find yourself spending hours letting these tasks irk you. Don’t you hate that feeling of guilt when you know you should be doing those things you’ve been putting off as you go do something more fun?

I think I’d rather save hours of feeling guilty by just getting those things checked off the list.

Enter the Power Hour.

What is a Power Hour?

A Power Hour is an hour dedicated to working on unpleasant, non-urgent chores. Use a Power Hour once a week to work on whichever task or tasks you find it easy to procrastinate.

Here are a few ways you can use a Power Hour:

Use a Power Hour to take care of minor un-fun tasks

The lovely little to-do list I mentioned earlier is the perfect candidate for a Power Hour. All these little non-time-sensitive tasks can get really overwhelming. It’s easier to spend one hour every week to take everything off the list than to let it keep getting larger and larger.

And usually, the motivation to get through it all is built-in. I can power through all this stuff once I get on a roll. It’s amazing how getting one of these things knocked out can motivate me to keep going.

Know the feeling?

Use a Power Hour to break up large projects

The hardest part of starting a project is starting, especially when it’s so big and overwhelming. Instead of looking at is as one big project, break it into smaller pieces. One way to do it would be to dedicate one hour each week to work on that project.

Spend one hour each week working on organizing your digital photos, putting together your family yearbook, or decluttering an area of your home.

If you can do a little bit each week, it’s not so bad. And how nice would it be at the end of the year to find out your family yearbook is done and ready to order?!

So knock out that non-time-sensitive to-do list with a Power Hour. Make a commitment to one hour per week to getting stuff done by powering through all those little tasks or breaking down a large project.

Need to figure out what you should be working on? Check out this post about the one tip that changed how I work on my to-do list forever.