As the title says, I’m getting pretty overwhelmed by a growing list of tasks I have to do. Laundry is piling up, I still need to unpack my car from a roadtrip last weekend, and an issue I’ve been working at work has been dragging on for too long.
What are your techniques for resetting and getting through tasks that have been sitting around for too long?
For this kind of thing I (eventually) use a basic Pomodoro method: Set a timer for 20 mins and make a start on one of the jobs. You can do pretty much anything for just 20mins - and with some of these kind of things that have been hanging around for a while it could just be a question of working out exactly what you do need to do and getting stuff ready to do it next time etc.
Either way, work at it for 20mins. Then your timer will go off and you can stop and reward yourself - if you want to. Chances are, that by the 20mins mark you may well be stuck in and might just want to push on and get it done - then get your reward.
Strict Pomodoro is to work for 20mins then break for 5 and repeat, but that depends on the situation.