If your to-do list is multiplying faster than the proposed guest list for your wedding, you may be experiencing “little task overload.”

Having too many big projects on your plate will make anyone miserable, but sometimes it’s actually the small admin tasks that pop up throughout your day that are the hardest to work through.

• If you’re a fan of the Eisenhower Matrix, these activities would probably fall into the “delegate” category—except that in real life we often don’t have anyone to delegate these urgent-but-not-super-important tasks to.

While we’re never going to get rid of thankless duties like processing time cards and filing expense reports, there are ways to manage them. Here are a few tips to rebuild your focus and get you back to the big-ticket items that are actually in your job description.

Set time limits beforehand. Determine ahead of time how long a task (or set of tasks) is going to take. This prevents in-the-moment obsession over wording, details, and making sure all the infographics in your deck are horizontally aligned.

Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good. Sometimes it’s ok to whip off emails that don’t include choice intros you’ve agonized over for 20 minutes. “I hope you’re doing well today” will do just fine.

Block your cal. Try putting a hold on your schedule exclusively for admin tasks, either at the beginning or end of each day. That way things don’t build up throughout the week, and they don’t get lost in the shuffle either.

• Bonus points if you can close Instagram and work on the small stuff during your commute.

Treat yourself. We all deserve a reward after reorganizing the entire team’s Google Drive. That could be the simple satisfaction of finally crossing it off your to-do list, or it could mean placing an extra order of focaccia bread at Sweetgreen and not sharing it with anyone.

There’s no escaping the little tasks everywhere, but they don’t have to ruin your day either. And if worst comes to worst, put out as many fires as you can, and then pass the extinguisher to the colleague who owes you a favor.—CS

Great news for younger siblings everywhere: You may never need to call “shotgun” again to get dibs on the front seat. That’s because microcars—the adorably tiny 1950s “bubble cars” that literally don’t have a back seat for the loser to cry in—are making a comeback. And this time, they’re going electric.

• These battery-powered versions developed by startup EV cos take “fun-size” to the extreme.
• They’re not much larger than a bicycle and are primed to navigate medieval European cities (and hopefully LA traffic sometime soon).

Many companies have a “bubble car” concept in the back of their closet, waiting for a revival. Here are a few other ways orgs can dust off an idea (or their own image) and put it back on the shelf.

When the company’s mission has evolved over time, and it’s due for a facelift.

• Take Abercrombie & Fitch, the clothing retailer loved by every tween in ’08 and hated by their parents. By shifting away from its cologne-drenched stores and the A&F moose plastered across every camisole and instead toward higher-quality clothing and inclusive sizing, Abercrombie is as cool now as it was when you were in middle school.

When the scope of the business is changing, requiring new brand strategies.

• After dropping from 25 million users in 2005 to 100,000 in 2020, virtual pet community Neopets is relaunching this year. Its revival leans hard into the nostalgia factor, and the team hopes the relaunch will “bring Neopets back to its glory days.”

🪓 When a scandal or other collapse in brand trust has harmed the company’s reputation, and leadership wants a fresh start.

• In the early aughts, tobacco powerhouse Philip Morris changed its name to Altria in an attempt to shake off the hazy reputation cigarettes brought to the company. Unfortunately, like a smoker’s free Craigslist couch, no amount of deep cleaning could improve the situation.

Of course, a simple company refresh or evolution of a brand is way easier to pull off, whereas making a full departure from a previous organizational identity is about as simple as finding street parking in Manhattan—unless you already have a bubble car.

Why spend four hours pivoting between YouTube explainer videos and your half-finished Excel spreadsheet when you could spend one hour finishing the project and three hours binge-watching Love Island?

We’ve teamed up with Miss Excel—a Microsoft MVP who can teach you how to master spreadsheets without making you fall asleep—to host a live Excel masterclass on Wednesday, September 13. That’s tomorrow btw.

And did we mention it’s free?

Sign up here to take back your time.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that the worst offenders for creating “little tasks everywhere” are those early-morning emails hitting your inbox, the ones that reek of caffeine and productivity.

There’s a special solution for combating these. Fight fire with fire and learn the art of email shortcuts.

• That Outlook chime is about to turn into Beethoven’s Seventh, you’ll be working so fast.

Here are our top five time-savers for our Microsoft fam:

To start a new email: Press Ctrl + N (and Ctrl + Enter to send it off)

To reply to an email: Ctrl + R

To forward an email: Ctrl + F

To mark an email as unread: Ctrl + U (Q for read)

To open your calendar: Ctrl + 2

And for those few poor souls who have to use Outlook on a Mac, just remember to press “Command” instead of “Ctrl.”

Read: Add a “candor break” into your next meeting to get at what’s not being said.

Listen: The CEO of Ford isn’t just a car guy (he’s also Chris Farley’s cousin).

Watch: When your commute starts powering the subway.

The sport that’s not tennis: Pickleball means good business.

Burnout prevention: Give half your job to someone else.

Shop: Level up your coffee game to level up your Excel game, only with the Freak in the Sheets mug here.