Over the last few months, I’ve started using this trick with my To-Do list; I give every task a point value and I do 10 points of stuff each week night. This is kind of arbitrary, but I take the number of minutes to complete a task and divide by 10. If the task is kind of fun, I cut that number in half. But if the task is pretty terrible, I double it. Neutral tasks are unmodified.

So biking is something I know I should do and it takes about 40 minutes, so it should be a 4 but I like doing it so I call it a 2. On the other hand cleaning out the sink only takes 10 minutes so it should be a 1 but I hate it, so it’s a 2. Laundry takes 20 (active) minutes and it’s kind of neutral, so it stays a 2. That’s how I do it, you should find something that works for you.

Everyday, I sit down with my planner and look at the stuff that has to be done that night (appointments, high-priority tasks) and anything that’s really pressing (grocery shopping, laundry) and put those things down and give them points as described above. It that total is over 10, I start cutting the least important things. If the total is under 10, I look at my backlog and find one or more tasks to fill that gap. My backlog is just where I write down everything that doesn’t have a specific time-frame, but I want to get done someday.

This system has a few advantages that reduce the psychic load of figuring out what to do and doing it. It lets you know when you’ve given yourself enough to do – once I have 10 points and I stop planning and start working on stuff. It gives me confidence that when I put something down as “I will do this tonight”, I’m reasonably confident I will do it. And when I put something on my backlog, I know I’ll get to it when I can. Because I’m doing stuff every night, I make progress at a steady rate. But because I’m not doing too much, I don’t burn out. It helps with planning and can justify putting off a task – not procrastinating – but saying “I have four things that really need my attention tonight, so cleaning the kitchen can wait a day”.

The best part of this system is Being Done. You’ll never actually be done, there’s always more to do. But you’ll get that 10th point and you’ll get the Being Done feeling – this day has been productive and if I sit down and play Minecraft for the next 3 hours, I’ll still go to bed feeling accomplished. And wanting that feeling keeps me excited each night to get through my list quickly so I can relax and enjoy my evening without worry about everything else on my list.

My car is old, dinged up, scratched and has a bumper that’s almost falling off. And I may drive it for another 8 years. Or I may buy a new car tomorrow. Either way, I’m pretty happy.

Two years ago my transmission died and really left me in a lurch. I had to make a call to fix the transmission on an old car and risk having something else break in the near future or give up on it and buy a new car.  The problem was that I was not in a great financial position to buy a new car. That ended up being the motivating decision in fixing the transmission, fortunately it worked out for me, but I decided I didn’t want to be in that position the next time something went wrong.

I figured out how much it would have cost me to lease a car, which is the position I would have been forced into if my car had died, and it would have been (at the very least) about 10% of my take-home pay. Starting with my next paycheck, I took that 10% and put it into a car account. Over the next two years, it has grown to the point that I could not buy outright a decent used car. I also use that for maintenance costs on my current car.

This is something I recommend. It offers a lot of piece of mind and is relatively painless. When small maintenance issues do come up, I don’t worry because it feels like I’ve already paid for them. And when my car does finally die, I will have the funds ready to get a new one.