Why it’s better to tackle tasks you hate all in one go

Some days, we’re slammed with work, requiring us to demonstrate a fair bit of self-control. The way we deal with unappealing work plays an important role in determining how exhausted we feel in the evenings. A team of researchers in Germany and Ireland have discovered that by interrupting unappealing tasks to do other things, we make life unnecessarily difficult for ourselves.
Prof Dr Fabiola Gerpott and her colleagues wanted to find out whether it’d be beneficial for people to interrupt unpleasant tasks by switching to more enjoyable ones, enabling them to return to the tedious task with a renewed sense of vigour. The study, titled Keep it steady? Not only average self-control demands matter for employees’ work engagement, but also variability, concluded that people who try to sweeten the daily grind by breaking up unpleasant tasks and intersplicing them with more enjoyable ones aren’t doing themselves any favours. In fact, they make things unnecessarily difficult for themselves.

Grin and bear it

«On days when you’re faced with a high workload, it makes no sense to alternate between very enjoyable and very unenjoyable tasks, as doing so makes the contrast between the two particularly obvious,» explains Prof Dr Fabiola Gerpott, co-author of the study. In other words, interrupting the stuff we like doing with the stuff we hate doing only serves to intensify how exasperating we find the latter, making thankless tasks all the more tedious.

So our exhaustion level at the end of a busy day doesn’t just depend on the length of our to-do lists. What matters is how we spread our tasks throughout the day. Alternating between pleasant and unpleasant jobs forces us to keep mentally readjusting to the latter, leaving us feeling completely drained in the evening. However, if we plough through an unenjoyable task all in one go, bracing ourselves to do it just the once is enough to get us through.

The task-jumping hangover

According to the study, the disproportionate level of exhaustion we get from alternating between tasks we like and tasks we dislike also has consequences the following day. One night isn’t enough for us to recover. Unable to fully recharge, we start the next morning feeling less engaged.

People who find this most challenging are those who tend to experience a lot of stress or are vulnerable to burnout. For these individuals, changes in workflow prove especially exhausting, meaning they need longer recovery times. It’s easier to maintain self-control if you keep focused on unpleasant tasks until they’re complete, allowing you to get them done more quickly.

How to make your workday easier

Prof Gerpott and her co-authors offer tips on how to make work days that place high demands on your self-control easier. In other words, on days when you have a lot to do and need to push yourself to confront the less fun stuff. Organisation is key. Routines can make work processes easier and reduce stress. What’s more, defining who’s responsible for what early on can help you to persevere. Even if such a thing isn’t necessarily under your control, it makes sense to avoid working under time pressure. That way, your workflow isn’t interrupted by urgent tasks when you’re already in the middle of something.
As for people who want to protect themselves against emotional stress, Gerpott and her colleagues recommend exercise, mindfulness and healthy sleep.

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