Eleven tabs and a brown envelope

There's a brown envelope on the side. It's been there since Tuesday. It's from the council, or the DVLA, or the school, and it needs something, and you've moved it twice to wipe the surface under it and put it back. Next to it is a form from a school bag, for a trip, with a date on it that's getting closer. On your laptop there are eleven tabs open. The car insurance renewal, which is going to auto-renew at a price you know is wrong. A booking page for the dentist you've been meaning to ring. A message from a friend asking about a date in November, unanswered for nine days. An expenses claim with a receipt you can't find. A form for something you've forgotten the purpose of, kept open because closing it feels like losing it.

None of these would take long. You know that. The insurance is ten minutes on a comparison site. The dentist is a two-minute phone call. The reply is four sentences. The form is a signature and a photograph of it sent to a number. And yet it's Friday, and they're all still there, and the sight of them produces a small heavy feeling that you've stopped noticing because it's always there, and on Sunday evening you'll think about doing them and won't, and on Monday there'll be a twelfth.

These are invented, but I'd guess yours is close. Some words. The heap is all of it together, the tabs, the envelope, the form, the things you've promised to send. An item is one of them. The ping is the moment an item arrives, the envelope on the mat, the email, the text, the form in the bag. The carry is the weight of the undone items in your head, which chapter 3 is about, and which turns out to be measurable. The felt size of an item is how big it seems from the sofa. The actual size is how long it takes when you do it. The fourth reminder is the item that's come round again. The sweep is fifteen minutes a day, at the same time, for the list. A dated line is what an item gets when it can't be done today. And today is the rule.

Before you go on, do one thing. Write down every item in the heap. All of them, the tabs and the envelope and the ones you can only half remember. Next to each one, guess how long it would take. Then pick one, any one, and do it, with a clock running, and write down the actual time next to the guess. Don't do any more yet. Most people who do this find two things. The heap has fewer items in it than the carry suggested, and the one they did took a fraction of the guess.