Took this dagger in me and removed it

on dealing with the proverbial "pebble in your shoe"

I think I first heard the idea of a “pebble in your shoe” on the Best of Both Worlds podcast (source of many great discussions!) These are tiny problems you just live with day in and day out, that never bubble up high enough to fix. And then when you finally do take care of one, it’s shocking how little time it took and how much it improves your life.

This was the saga of the chairs during my time off. One day, when the kids were back at school and I needed a dopamine hit, I finally decided to take care of 4 chairs that needed to be re-upholstered.

Photo by Sonia Dauer on Unsplash

The first step was easy - order fabric from Etsy in the color I wanted. I checked my email to see how much I had ordered for previous chair projects and time-boxed my indecision on color choice to that browsing session. I picked a spring green I love. It was a tiny bit of progress and then a lot of waiting for this fabric to ship from Turkey.

When it showed up, it sat in our living room for a bit, but I left it out so I would deal with it. I chose one morning to call the shop (shout out to Roberto’s!) and he said to just bring them over.

All four chairs fit in our bigger car! So I didn’t even need to make two trips. I dropped them off with the fabric, got a call the next day that they were done, and picked them up. They looked remarkable. One was done in pink velvet left over from a sofa project for T’s room. The other three are that lovely green and look great in my office and TV room. They also got rebuilt so the cushions are more comfy.

Total hands on time for me was less than 75 minutes, including fabric choice and driving the 15 minutes each way to the shop. And now I’m not lamenting those broken-down, torn up chairs anymore!

As a newbie at work, there are similar “pebbles”. It’s easy to get caught up in the busy-ness and feel like there isn’t time to slow down and deal with them.

One was learning how to use a specialized email tool that adds all the features that Outlook *should* have. (Sorry friends who worked on Outlook!). I was getting tagged and assigned things in this tool during my first week at work and I felt overwhelmed. I didn’t know how to use it - it’s surprisingly complicated on first glance, and it felt like going through the training would take too much time.

But not knowing how to use it was also stressing me out, so I blocked 90 minutes on my calendar to learn how to use this thing. And now I *prefer* it to Outlook, *and* it’s saving me time because I learned how to make templates for commonly sent emails. Pebble removed and I’ve gained back that 90 minutes easily in email-processing and sending time.

I did this with another app last week. I had an urgent, very visible task that had to be completed with outdated instructions. (Publishing something to our customer-facing external website- yikes!). I was terrified I was going to screw up. But again, I blocked an hour on my calendar to go through some Help for this topic, and read the old instructions. I watched a couple of recorded meetings on the topic and asked coworkers for help. I got the task done, and spent less than 2 hours total on it. I spent more time stressing about it, of course. WHYYYY?

I spent the extra time automating task creation in our tracking system instead of copying them manually, and this will pay off, because I’ve already done it twice, with another round needed most weeks. Yes, it took an extra 30 minutes to dig up the exact format and some trial-and-error when uploading, but holy crap is it worth it for the saved time!

I’ve dropped a couple more pebbles on my task list - little things that aren’t working the way they’re supposed to that need investigation.

Here are my tips on handling these:

1. Capture them where you put your to-dos as soon as you’re annoyed (again).

2. Schedule one on your calendar. Give it 30 minutes more than you think - you likely won’t need the time but it’s better than not scheduling enough.

3. During the scheduled time, be calm and systematic. No pressure. You have ample time. Research the solution online if you don’t know where to start. Look up emails or other resources to help. RTFM. (i.e. read the instructions y’all who never do). Ask ChatGPT.

4. Make a list of open questions and figure out who/what can answer them.

5. Don’t be afraid to try stuff even if you’re not sure. DO SOMETHING.

6. Revel in the completion. Celebrate it every time you use or see that thing - you fixed that annoying issue!

This is the real-life illustration of the adage “slow down to speed up”. When I got calm and just started reading and trying things, it got easier. When I was anxious and felt too busy, everything felt hard. There is enough time to fix these small issues and be happier overall!

What are your pebbles right now?

This place is such great motivation