Do What You Dread

Getting Things Done is a great system, but it’s not always clear what your priorities should be. I had an experience when I was 12 years old which has helped me set priorities ever since.

I grew up on a small farm in eastern South Dakota near Lake Campbell. One cold, windy spring day I was fooling around by the lake and I spotted an old tire someone had discarded on the ice about 20 feet out from the shore. This tire really bugged me; it was right around the time of the first Earth Day in 1970, and my environmental consciousness was running high, I guess. So, I decided to retrieve it.

I knew, of course, that this was really stupid. The ice had already melted further out, and it was open water about 20 feet past the tire. Every year there was at least one story of a kid falling through the ice and drowning.

I inched out on the ice, testing its strength with each step before I put my full weight down. In a few minutes I was almost to the tire, when I heard a cracking sound and felt the ice move. I hadn’t fallen through; the entire section I was on had broken off and was drifting out into open water.

I scuttled back to the edge of my floe closest to shore. There is no photographic record of this event, but this was my situation: 

The wind was rapidly pushing me out in the lake; already the gap was 10 feet and visibly widening. I knew that jumping in the water and trying to swim to shore in my heavy winter clothes and boots might be fatal, but I could see my situation was worsening every second. I might have hesitated a moment, but I don’t remember that; I remember knowing what I had to do, and I did it.

I also remember the physical feeling of dread; I really, really did not want to jump in that icy water. I often get that same feeling when I have to do something I don’t want to do; for example, when I think about an unpleasant call I have to make to a client, or when I need to confront a coworker about an issue. When I get that feeling I think back to my experience on the ice, and ask myself if the situation is going to get better by putting it off. The answer is almost always no, and so I go ahead and get it over with.

There are a couple of reasons to move these kinds of tasks to the top of the priority list. First, if the situation is such that it provokes a physical feeling of dread, it probably is really important to deal with it. Even more importantly, if the situation is not resolved at some level your mind will continue processing it, and it will pop up again and again provoking the same bad feelings until you finally do deal with it.