This mental trick makes every task way more doable

Amy Shearn
Forge
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1 min readMar 1, 2021

🎢 Today’s tip: Picture yourself on the other side of the task.

Think of an important thing you don’t want to do. A medium-sized thing. Not too big, not too small. Cleaning the bathroom, maybe, or sending a slightly awkward email. Now picture yourself AFTER you’ve completed it. The task suddenly seems less daunting, doesn’t it?

The benefits of this approach are twofold: As the time-management expert Laura Vanderkam writes in Forge, “This skill of picturing our future selves is fundamental for discipline — but it’s also important for happiness, which is just as important.”

Help your current self see the benefits of getting it done by connecting to your future self. Won’t that self be so happy it’s over with? And, as if by magic, the task will transform from an obstacle into a bridge to a happier place.

💪 More from Forge on doing hard stuff:

How to Break Down Your Problems Into Smaller Parts
Read More >>

Three Words You Need for Your Next Hard Conversation
Read More >>

How to Own Up to a Mistake
Read More >>

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Forge
Forge

Published in Forge

A former publication from Medium on personal development. Currently inactive and not taking submissions.

Amy Shearn
Amy Shearn

Written by Amy Shearn

Formerly: Editor of Creators Hub, Human Parts // Ongoingly: Novelist, Essayist, Person