How Facing Your Most Avoided Tasks Can Boost Productivity

I have been really lucky throughout my career to have some great bosses, most of whom I’ve stayed in touch with. Perhaps the best one was a guy named Lou Kassa. He’s a big reader and was always giving book recommendations, and we’d often talk about what we were reading. I was struggling to complete some tasks on time, and Lou gave me some sage advice: “The tasks we avoid are often the ones that matter the most.” This notion, or at least a variation of it, is the main theme of Steven Pressfield's book *The War of Art*. I wouldn’t know, though, as I haven’t actually read it. But he had.

Lou explained that we often procrastinate when faced with tasks we don’t want to do, tasks we don’t enjoy, or tasks we’re not good at—especially when those tasks are mandated. The sad reality, he pointed out, is that these tasks are often the most important to other people, and those people are often the ones who pay your salary.

The task I was struggling with fit all of these criteria: budgeting. It was a weakness of mine, I had to do it, and I hated it. I would wait until the last minute. Once the budget was done, it was time for my monthly variance reports. Again, I half-assed them at the last minute because I hated doing them.

At the time, I was reading *The One Thing* by Gary Keller. In this book, Keller emphasizes the importance of focusing on a single, most important task each day to achieve extraordinary results. So, I combined the two pieces of advice. Each morning, I would come to work, quickly check my emails for emergencies—leaving anything that wasn’t an emergency unanswered—and then work on the one thing I was avoiding.

I sat there, staring at the blinking cursor, doing nothing for possibly hours. But I realized I was spending more effort avoiding the work than just doing it. Finally, I got it done. The same thing happened the next day, and the next. There were days when it would take me until noon to finish a single task, and it was miserable.  But each morning on my drive to work I would figure out the thing I was dreading doing, and plan to do it.

After a few days (maybe weeks) I realized it wasn’t taking me as long each morning to get my one task done. Soon, the dreaded task was taking 20 minutes or less. Doing the painful task first was making me more productive and much better at my job.

Budget management is now a strength of mine. I don’t dread calling “angry parents,” and I process my staff credit card receipts because I now enjoy the repetition and the satisfaction of being able to say, “Task complete.” These are all things I once spent endless hours avoiding through busywork.

The final reason this is relevant to camp is that, at the end of the day, you can say, “I did this today,” and check it off. As camp directors, there are so many days when we come home exhausted but have no sense of what we’ve achieved—it was just one giant blur. This way, every day is productive.

In the end, the lessons I learned from Lou and The One Thing transformed not just how I approach my work but how I view productivity as a whole. By facing the tasks I once dreaded head-on, I’ve been able to shift my mindset and become more effective in my role. It’s not always easy, and sometimes the work still feels uncomfortable, but the satisfaction of overcoming those hurdles is worth it. In the fast-paced unpredictable world like ours, where tasks can pile up quickly, focusing on what matters most has allowed me to move from just surviving the day to truly accomplishing something meaningful. And while this method may not work for me during the busiest times of the year*, it has fundamentally changed how I approach my work in the off-season and beyond.

*This approach doesn’t work for me at all in the summer months. there a shitshow just like yours.