In my latter days at Digital, I was working on the SPIA project reporting to a very senior engineer who was undoubtedly a genius but had a relatively abrupt and even abrasive style. It didn't pay to be too thin-skinned around him. I looked up to him for his broad knowledge and sheer brain-power and badly wanted what I did to impress him, so I was a little jumpy around him.

In those days, I would walk around with lists of tasks to be done in my head and rattle them off when I talked to him, saying "I've done this one but I need to do that and I need to do the other, etc." There was one task, I forget now which one, something tedious I wasn't looking forward to and had been putting off. When I got to that item in my litany, he gave me a significant look, interrupted me, and said "Yes, you need to."

The conversation stopped abruptly right there in the middle of things and I went off to do the thing I had been putting off for so long to get it off the list and so I didn't have to go back to him with it not yet done.

For some reason, that moment stuck with me and so now when I'm about to put off something necessary but tedious, I hear that senior engineer's voice in my head saying "Yes, you need to" and I get it done sooner rather than later.