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If you know the task is important and you’re approaching it efficiently, allow yourself to enjoy it. For recurrent hard assignments, think about the parts of it you like best at the beginning, middle, and end stages.

For instance, I like listening to my Mac auto-read aloud drafts of my blog posts when doing my final edits. It’s satisfying to find those last few instances where I’ve repeated a word, made a typo, or the melody of a sentence is wrong. I also like the beginning stages of projects in which I get to top up my brain with broad searches on Google Scholar, and the middle stages when I’m wrestling with parts of what I’m writing that aren’t working but when my overall structure is in place and sound. By articulating distinct, enjoyable aspects of tasks, you can be more mindful and savor them.