The importance of “Monkey Work”

“Monkey Work”

Def: Work that is easy to do, requires very little preparation to get started, is somewhat repetitive, and breaks up the day to get you motivated to do more challenging work later.

I believe having a certain amount of available “monkey work” to do is vital for breaking a cycle of lack of motivation. There are days when I simply can’t get started on ANYTHING. It’s like my brain needs to ease into the idea of working on more challenging projects. So I have instituted a process that I affectionately call, “monkey work” that helps me break through those moments when I can’t even bear to open my browser and it helps me warm up and get ready for bigger things later.

What do I consider to be “monkey work”? Anything that is easy and repetitive. This is relative of course, and is determined by what you think to be easy, but for me these tasks include:

1. Sorting through email, deleting spam, setting up spam filters, and sorting mail that didn’t get properly sorted for some reason.

2. Setting up affiliate redirects. I join approximately 10-15 affiliate programs a week and I setup redirects in the form of sub-domains and I set up backup affiliate redirects in the form of 301 redirects. Eyes glazing over yet? I know, it sounds boring, but they are easy to do and need to be done anyway so I reserve them for “monkey work” time.

3. Checking stats on all of my sites and optimizing a page or two. Needs a few more brain cells than #1 or #2 but feels “monkey-ish” to me.

4. Offline “monkey work” that helps me get psyched to do cleaning or organizing includes: cleaning out one drawer, making the bed (and doing it REALLY well with nice corners and all), clearing off kitchen counters and scrubbing them down, shining the kitchen sink, and other little things like that.

So if you find yourself unable to even get started on work or cleaning or organizing, make a mental list of tasks that you actually like and are easy and start there. “Monkey Work” just might be what you need to jumpstart your day.