![]() ![]() Generally, tasks that involve human interaction and communication aren’t menial. ![]() ![]() While emailing often feels mindless, it isn’t reactive or rote. It’s not hard thinking, but it does require the analytical part of your brain, that prefrontal cortex, that you use for decision making and planning. ![]() #Menial tasks full#Though simple, easy, and trivial, this typically requires your full attention and concentration. Some are deceptively non-menial, like answering email, for instance. It’s entirely possible that you no longer make a single mindful decision between the moment you wake up and the moment you get to work. Household chores, cleaning, your morning routine - these are probably the clearest examples. There’s a good chance you’re already doing this to some degree. #Menial tasks driver#That NYC cab driver wasn’t dodging joggers and gunning across lanes for tolls only 21 days after he received his driver’s license, but, on the flip side, it doesn’t take 21 days to hardwire dishwashing into the brain. There’s a common - though somewhat outdated - theory that 21 days is the magic number to form a habit, but the reality is that it depends on the complexity and number of tasks. For Martha, it took her about five weeks before she didn’t need to refer to her list of 82 tasks. If he can do that, there just might be a few routines in your life you can menialize. Chew on that for a second: your cabbie is confidently, narrowly, and mindlessly avoiding property damage, negligent homicide, and certain death for himself and his passengers. Just watch an NYC cab driver navigating through a bustling, unpredictable city, avoiding killing pedestrians, cyclists, and other cabbies, all while chatting with his fellow cabbies via Bluetooth. Many reactive tasks you do in a day can eventually work their way into that habitual thoughtless state, leaving the rest of your brain to focus on other matters.Īny New Yorker can observe just how complicated and intense a thought process we can bake into that dorsolateral striatum. It works for more than showering and dishwashing. Or more simply put, the rote processes that distract our hands focus our minds. Have you ever started to drive home from work, and suddenly you’re home and you don’t remember a single thing about the traffic? Martha can’t recite that list of 82 tasks she performs, but when she’s cleaning an apartment, she performs them all and in the same order every time.Īnd importantly, launching into this active state of procedural memory can actually stimulate and boost the higher levels of thinking and creative reasoning. As we perform a task repeatedly, it requires less direct concentration from our prefrontal cortex (the big thinking and self regulation center), and eventually it becomes entirely procedural memory to the point where we may not even be able to recall what we are doing. The dorsolateral striatum along with a little help from the cerebellum (muscle memory) and the basal ganglia (habit forming) is responsible for something called procedural memory. This is where the dorsolateral striatum comes in. #Menial tasks how to#Have you ever had a Eureka moment in the shower? Have you ever been washing dishes when suddenly a (figurative) lightbulb turns on and you suddenly know how to solve some difficult problem at work that has been nagging at you all week? They can be the secret trump card to help you tackle one of the trickiest, most important, most elusive tasks in your day: thinking. Why menial tasks are good for thinkingĭon’t underestimate the power of menial tasks. How is this possible? The answer has to do with a special part of the brain called the dorsolateral striatum and how humans program themselves to accomplish menial tasks. In fact, she feels invigorated at the end of each day. To some, this must seem like the worst job in the world. Monday through Friday, 410 tasks in 8 hours every day. She does the same 82 two things all day every day. On Martha’s first day, they even made her watch a 3 hour video of another employee performing the tasks. An excruciatingly long list of seemingly unnecessary tedium. Make sure the shower head isn’t set to “massage” mode. Push the coat hangers to the left side of the sliding closet. When she began, her boss handed her a list of 82 tasks to complete for each apartment. The décor bridges the gap between cozy and soulless, every unit is identical, and identically manicured before each new resident moves in. The land houses a complex of 215 small apartments full of analysts, consultants, insurance investigators, and other white collar travellers in need of a temporary home away from home. Martha Judelson cleans corporate housing.Įvery day she drives to a vast, bland plot of land 8 miles from Bob Hope airport near Burbank, California. ![]()
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