Doing Tedious Tasks Is a Form of Quiet Power
How tolerating friction in tedious tasks pays off across life domains.
The gap between people who get unusually good results and people who don't is often just willingness to tolerate friction.
We often associate tedious tasks with low status but they can be a way to wield subtle power.
You don't have to be flashy to stand out. You need to endure friction most people aren't willing to.
Consider These Examples
- Meg's bank charges a $15 monthly fee unless she makes 5 debit card transactions a month. She prefers to use her credit card for rewards, not her debit card. Once a month, when her local supermarket isn't busy, she buys 5 bananas in 5 individual transactions at self-checkout. She doesn't make the rules but she makes the rules work for her.
- Phil has a hotel reservation that has a cancellation policy for 48 hours before check-in. There's a blizzard coming in. He doesn't want to cancel now nor risk getting charged if he can't travel. He calls the hotel and asks for an Option C. They tell him to keep the reservation and they won't charge the fee if he can't make it. To prevent possible problems, he asks them to send him a quick email confirming this.
- When Lacey books a rental car she loads the reservation number into a service that tracks price drops for the exact same reservation (company, car type, and dates). If the price drops she cancels and re-books. It takes a few extra minutes but it helps her save money several times a year.
None of this is hard. It's just annoying enough that most people don't bother.
Annoying, Tedious Task Types
Opportunities hide in tasks like:
- Filling out the lengthy application.
- Wading through the confusing interface.
- Claiming everything you're entitled to.
- Documenting a process.
- Asking the question everyone else is too embarrassed to ask.
- Following up when it would be easier to let it drop.
- Reading the terms and benefits.
- Comparing prices before auto-renewing.
- Submitting the reimbursement form others forget.
- Making phone calls.
The first time we do anything is full of friction, but most things only need to be figured out once. The confusing interface becomes familiar. The phone tree you dreaded has a shortcut. The form you avoided takes ten minutes once you've done it before.
Friction works as a filter. Most people opt out voluntarily. Many systems are designed this way. Think about insurance, rebates, and bureaucracy. The friction is sometimes intentional, or at least it's not advantageous for the company to fix it. The system works when it doesn't.
If tolerating friction-filled tasks isn't easy, we assume we can't be good at it. It's useful to recognize that it's hard for almost everyone. The reimbursement form is sitting in your coworker's inbox too. If you can get good at tolerating friction, through strategy and practice, it can be a rare strength.
Health, finances, relationships, leisure, and career are all areas where a willingness to persist through tedious tasks can have major benefits.
Everyone Has at Least One Tolerance Others Don't
You don't have to be good at tolerating all types of friction to benefit. You might have one life domain in which you're good at strategic friction tolerance, or a particular strength in one task type (e.g., making phone calls or form filling and documentation, but not necessarily both). Consider where your existing strengths lie and how you could expand them.
Sometimes friction is just friction, but other times it tells you where unusual benefits might be hiding. The tasks everyone else avoids are often the ones with disproportionate returns. If most people opt or drop out, the people who persist can experience benefits most others don't.
Instead of seeing tedious tasks based on face value, look for ways of using them to express your agency and strategic acumen.
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advertisementAlice Boyes, Ph.D., translates principles from Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and social psychology into tips people can use in their everyday lives.