5 tips to speed up your tasks

People who are deliberate, detail-focused, and responsible can sometimes get slowed down by those same strengths.

These five tips are for overthinkers, perfectionists, and anyone who has turned a 10-minute task into an hour-long slog. Or a two-hour project into a two-week think-athon, from second-guessing so much you don’t commit to a course of action.

When a task or decision is taking too long, pick one of these methods to get it done quickly so you can move on:

1. Imagine Your Solution as Temporary

What’s good enough for right now? Think of today’s solution as Version 1.

This mindset can help in two scenarios.

First, “forever-ism” (e.g., searching for a forever home) is a form of perfectionism. Imagining a solution as temporary can help us move forward more quickly. If you’re picking a frame for your favorite photo and can’t decide, you might choose one you’ll keep for the next few months, not forever.

Second, the mindset of a temporary solution can allow us to do what we’re capable of today. Apple couldn’t make the current iPhone without making all the earlier versions. Early, inferior versions aren’t failures; they’re part of a process of making great things.

Yet, we often expect something different of ourselves. We expect today’s version of whatever we’re doing to be our best. If you’re growing, that won’t be the case.

2. Drop One of Your Must-Have Criteria

If a decision or solution is taking too long, try removing one of your criteria, something you think the solution must have. For example, if you’ve spent hours searching for the perfect vacation rental or doctor and have five must-haves, drop one and see if the search becomes quicker.

Which of your criteria should you drop? Three approaches:

A. Drop the one that removes the most friction (explained fully in point three next),

B. Drop whatever is least important

C. Drop any criteria that are important for a longer-term solution but not for a temporary one

I prefer either A or C because they’ll more directly help you finish quickly.

3. Let Go of the Element of the Task That’s Slowing You Down

Sometimes the fastest way forward is letting go of what’s making a task complicated.

Here’s a funny example: Earlier this week, I was creating an AI image for my email newsletter to accompany a math puzzle. I wanted a colorful cartoon of two toddlers sitting on a mat in a preschool playroom with a thought bubble above them showing 12 single animal legs (not pairs). No animal heads, only individual limbs.

The images were perfect, except I couldn’t get the AI tool to draw 12 single animal legs. I tried at least 10 prompts. It drew pairs of legs, miscounted, and drew other animal body parts. It was frustrating but comical.

What did I do wrong? I overfocused on an element of the task that wasn’t essential. I switched to asking it to draw a cat in the thought bubble and was done in two minutes.

This is a common pattern in people who are naturally persistent. We try to force success with a single approach rather than stepping back, considering abandoning that path, and trying another.

4. Imagine a Scenario That Would Make Moving Forward Feel Dramatically Easier

We’ve already covered how thinking of a solution as temporary can speed up decision-making. It helps reveal when we’ve added too much pressure by trying to make our next solution perfect.

Imagining other scenarios that would make moving forward feel much easier and lighter can highlight what’s blocking you so you can bypass it. For example, picture how much easier the decision might feel if:

You knew the outcome in advance (less uncertainty)
You had fewer choices (less overwhelm)
You were deciding for someone else (less emotional weight)
The decision involved much less money or time (lower stakes)
Something forced urgency (less room for overthinking)

Once you understand your block, create the mental conditions necessary to unblock yourself. For example, you might take a first step of narrowing your decision to three options, then the next day decide between them.

You knew the outcome in advance (less uncertainty)
You had fewer choices (less overwhelm)
You were deciding for someone else (less emotional weight)
The decision involved much less money or time (lower stakes)
Something forced urgency (less room for overthinking)

Once you understand your block, create the mental conditions necessary to unblock yourself. For example, you might take a first step of narrowing your decision to three options, then the next day decide between them.

5. Don’t Conflate Overthinking With Conscientiousness and Commitment

It’s easy to think of overthinking as harmless, except it isn’t. There’s a big opportunity cost (what else we could be doing), and even 10 minutes a day or week of overthinking is significant over the course of a year.

Sometimes people become so accustomed to overthinking that it becomes their default. It’s even possible to feel unconsciously reassured by the effort of it. We can start to subtly believe that angsting over a decision or step in a task demonstrates our conscientiousness and commitment to a good outcome.

Instead, try expressing a different strength through the task, like flexibility. Overthinkers often underestimate the extent to which flexibility is one of their strengths and see themselves as rigid. Why is flexibility a strength of overthinkers? They’re naturally motivated to think of multiple options. The only step left is the willingness to try more than one of them.

If you’re interested in becoming a more flexible overthinker, read this article next.

Otherwise, find a task or decision you can apply one of the techniques from this article to today. Think of mastering these techniques as your Version 1 of becoming a clearer decision-maker and faster at getting things done. Like any good Version 1, it’s already better than no growth.