#hacking-gtd

That takes too long.

I don't have time.

That's repetitive.

That's grunt work.

That's too tedious.

That takes too long...I'm not doing it.

Here are mine:

I don't ride my mountain bike because it takes too long to find my stuff, get my stuff together, put the bike rack on the car, etc.  It takes forever just to get ready.  I just want to go, now. Nevermind.  Watch another episode of Archer instead.  (Result: miss out on exercise, fun, true re-creation and nature's best de-stressing).

I don't want to handle that email now.  I'll have to stop what I'm doing, find other stuff.  It'll take... forever.  Mark unread.  (Result: I'll do all that stuff anyway, or miss something important.  Wasted time, creating the feeling that I don't have enough...time.  Rinse. Repeat.)

I don't want to get my clothes ready in the morning.  I'll just do it then, I'm tired now.  (Result: have a slower morning; have a less *on* morning, waste time, don't feel in control, feel rushed, keep firm grip on status quo.)

Option C remedy:

Challenge the "too" in It takes too long.  Objectify it.  Remove the judgement.  It's not an emotion, it's a stopwatch.  Take your phone out of your pocket, put the timer app on your home screen.  Set the clock on your computer to show seconds.  Next time something takes too long and you're about to make a decision based on too long, find out just how long too long really is.  It may surprise you.  Either way, it is what it is, and the too is really just a mood meter that keeps you from better decisions.

Examples:

Putting on my long underwear to make a walk around the block before work comfortable (and therefore actually happen)... turns out, "too long" was, in fact, 3 minutes.  Hm. Not really so long.

Small administrative task: I created a new project in my timesheet app, Harvest (getharvest.com - it's really good).  It brings over about 25 default project tasks but the one I just added doesn't need them.  Upshot, I had a bit of tedium to delete them all.  Drag.  Bore.  Waste. Grunt work... I look at the clock on my (killer) iMac, and note the time (including seconds).  The task to manually delete them all was under 1 minute.  This means the difference between lazy and perfect was literally seconds.  

Take the power back.  Quantify "too" and then it's not too long any more, it's just a number of minutes that is or isn't more than you choose to spend.  You're in control.