There is a hole in my bucket, dear Liza, dear Liza. And to fix that hole, I need to fix another thing, and to fix that… Hopefully we all know the song, where Henry is stuck, unable to do any task, because every task needs something else to be done first, and each of those needs something else done to fix it. Eventually, Henry can’t fix the last thing in the loop because he has needs his bucket working, and it has a hole in it. This is sometimes quite a quandary and can really stump up. Most often though, it is a False Hole in the Bucket Problem, where the hole is genuine, but the loop is an illusion. Here is how to break out of the loop.
You may also be interested in:
The Weird 5
First of all, the odds are that you aren’t thinking well. Your mind can only seem to fix this problem in a single way, and the next, and the next and you are now paralysed with indecision. Time to do The Weird 5 [LINK]:
- Did you take your medication?
- Do you need to eat, or did you eat something you shouldn’t have?
- Do you need to rest rather than do?
- Is there enough sensory stimulation or too much?
- Is there actually something you should be taking care of right now – such as a danger or time sensitive something, and not that hole in the bucket problem?
The reason why we list the Weird 5 is the most of the time when we have a Hole In Bucket problem, we are actually experiencing brain fog and perfectionism. These can often be addressed by going through the steps and sorting them out first.
If the Weird 5 is not the actual problem, then let us get down to systematically solving it.
Systematic Solutions
Perfection is the Enemy of Good Enough
While it is cheaper to do a task well, rather than having to fix it later, if we are getting stuck, we do not have the energy and resources to do that task well. If you do a task good enough, and it allows you to do the next several tasks well, then this is good enough.
Perfection requires us to spend additional time and effort to make this bit we do very, very well. This may save us time later – if we can do it. If we cannot do it, or shouldn’t do it now, then perfecting this task leads to paralysis, which is worse than doing just a “good enough” job.
Often it is anxiety that prevents us from doing “good enough”.
Most Likely Forms of Anxiety:
- Fear of Failure – this task or the following tasks
- Fear of Judgement – from someone else, or from our future selves
- Fear of Rejection – similar to the fear of judgement, but it is more about them walking after they judged us
Once we recognise the anxiety that we have, we can confront it with recognition that those are less bad than not getting anything done.
Re-evaluate the Priorities
The problem that Henry had in the hole in bucket problem was that he had a dozen or so things that needed to be fixed for him to progress. He didn’t give any of the tasks more priority than any other task – they all seemed important.
So let us create a system to works out priorities. The top of the list is the most important, the bottom of the list is least and a good place to start if nothing else was ticked first:
- Is someone being hurt, or about to be hurt? Prioritise the task that avoids that.
- Is there going to be a significant cost to not doing a particular task?
- Is there a task that is very cheap to get down “good enough” that you know how to do now? Prioritise the least expensive task you know how to do. You can guess on the cost.
The goal here is to help work out the most important priority tasks to do, and then if none of those are apparent, the task that is easiest to complete to get the tasks list moving again.
“I’d like to call a friend, Eddie”
If you cannot move on to doing a task, then do what Henry did and talk to a friend. He explains to Liza his dilemma and how he is stuck. Unfortunately, in the song, Liza ends up looping back to why the hole in the bucket needed to be fixed.
Our request to Liza (or our friend) is to help us find a task that we can bodge together well enough that it fixes the loop of immobility. Sometimes Liza can be our brain, sometimes she can be someone who helps, or someone who is just present doing their own thing while we get on and do ours. The second half of this is referred to as body doubling.
Desperation Calls for Dice
If none of the above has helped you settle on the task to do “well enough” that is within your ability and resources, then we are going to use randomness. First, write out a list of the tasks in the loop, numbering them. For this, we can use literal dice, or if you have access to a search engine, you literally ask it to “pick a random number between 1 and X” where you replace X with the last umber of the tasks that you have. Whatever the answer, that’s the task you are going to do.
If you find that you cannot do that task, either you don’t actually have the resources to do it, or the knowledge, then the next one on the list is what you will do. Remember, this is a loop, so if the last task is the one that you can’t do, loop around to number 1. Perhaps your Liza can help figure out how to get that task done well enough that it helps you to do another task better.
The worst case scenario is that today is not the day to do any of these things, and you should try again tomorrow. Today’s task is now switched to relaxing and recuperating.