No matter how dedicated we are to our businesses or careers, most of us find certain tasks unappealing and wind up procrastinating over them. Of course, these tasks have to be done, but the lack of desire to complete them can result in neglect, sometimes to the detriment of the business overall.

It is possible to successfully work on tasks you don’t enjoy. You just need to rethink your approach. If there are certain tasks that you find tiresome or unpleasant, try adopting one or two of the following techniques to overcome the unpleasantness and get them out of the way—efficiently and effectively.

 

Schedule the Tasks You Don’t Enjoy

 

One way to ensure you work on those tiresome tasks which you’d rather ignore is to schedule regular time-slots in which to work on them. If you schedule the tasks you don’t enjoy, you’ll find it harder to procrastinate.

It’s also motivational to see that you have a definite period of time after which you can get back to work on more enjoyable activities. Working on unpleasant tasks in short blocks of time helps too, in making sure they don’t get completely neglected.

 

Give Unenjoyable Tasks a Little Depth

 

This is a psychological approach you can take to turn tasks you don’t enjoy into tasks which at least give you a measure of satisfaction. The next time you’re facing one of these tasks, try thinking of it differently. Give the task some depth and meaning. Set yourself some small targets surrounding the task.

For example, if it’s a repetitive task, see how many times you can complete the task in one hour. Call that your personal record then tries to beat it by increasing the number of times you can do it in an hour. Keep a record of your performance and continuously try to beat it.

This approach will add interest to otherwise dull tasks. You might even find yourself looking forward to the activity in the future as you prepare to make your next assault on your personal best.

 

Delegate Tasks You Don’t Enjoy

 

Delegation is not about offloading menial tasks onto your colleagues or employees. However, there are many reasons why you may not enjoy a particular task. For example, you simply might not be good at a certain task. Someone else in your team might excel at that particular job and thoroughly enjoy it.

Tasks like this are ideal for delegation. It will get the task off your plate and delegation can even be used to stretch and develop the person to whom you delegate.

If there are no internal employees to whom you can delegate some of the tasks you don’t enjoy, don’t worry. The next best thing is to outsource these tasks to a virtual assistant. Unlike delegation to an internal employee, a virtual assistant can take on those mundane, repetitive, and just plain boring tasks which you don’t wish to do yourself.

 

Free Yourself For The Tasks You Love

 

Thanks to the Internet and the borderless connectivity it provides, you no longer have to work on tasks you don’t enjoy. For a very reasonable price, you can hand those tasks off to someone who will be glad of the work, and depending on the task, maybe more adept at it than you are.

At most, you might need to check the quality of the virtual assistant’s work, but isn’t that a whole lot better than worrying about how to get it done yourself? So now you have a choice to make—get to work on those tasks you don’t enjoy, or delegate them and do something more enjoyable instead.

Find more about outsourcing and remote staffing here.