The Hat Trick That Transforms Impossible Chores Into Fun

It’s not magic, it’s behavioral science

A few months ago, my wife Janine looked at our backyard and sighed. We had guests coming in two days, and the yard was a disaster. Two seasons of scattered toys, sports equipment, forgotten art projects, and general kid debris had turned our outdoor space into what looked like an archeological dig of childhood chaos.

“The kids need to clean up the yard,” she said.

Anyone who’s ever asked children to “clean up the yard” knows this is basically asking for a meltdown. It’s the kind of task that makes even adults want to crawl back into bed. What I call an Ur-Task, a task so large it encompasses all the others.

Why Ur-Tasks Feel Impossible

From a behavioral science standpoint there are barriers to attacking these tasks:

Emotional: The work is drudgery and you dread it. It’s boring and daunting.

Cognitive: You need to itemize every task into a sensible order to even start it.

Physical: This work is real labor; often it is physically unpleasant.

Time: Unlike a quick chore like taking out the trash it can take 20 minutes to an hour, or sometimes even more.