I hear you, I hear you – “How would Rich know whether or not something should be on my list”. And your right. I am just speculating, but I bet I’m not far off the mark…
You see, we all have good intentions. In fact, some of us have GREAT intentions. And it turns out your to-do list/GTD System as a microcosm for what and who you THINK you are. Hidden amongst the routine and the important, are tasks that should be anywhere near our radar:
1) Learn French. What, all of it? That’s one task? Your going to need to block a big chunk of time out… Maybe if you had “Book on a French course at local college” then you are more likely to take that next step;
2) Save More Money. At least “Learn French” was an action. “Save More Money” is what happens when you complete a bunch of acions. Try “Research money saving techniques”;
3) Tidy the Loft. Really? Are you actually ever going to do this? In my experience Time-consuming + Not-urgent + Out-of-sight = Keep-putting-off. If you are unlikely to do something, then put it on a ‘Someday/Maybe’ list and keep you main list for things you need or want to do;
4) Phone/e-mail/SMS John. How long has this been on your list? Since last night when you decided to call him today, then fine. If it has been on there for 6 months and you still haven’t done it then maybe start to acknowledge that contract drift in and out of your life, and we haven’t got time for them all at once.
5) Stop Smoking. You can’t change a habit with a list. Habits are built into us and need slowly unravelling – lists are black and white. You may have dropped from 30-a-day to just 5, but the list still has ’stop smoking’ on it. This goes for ‘be more tidy’, ‘watch less tele’, or ‘read more Half-a-dozen Monkeys blogs’. By all means have a ‘habits’ list, but keep these off your day-to-day.
So how did you do? Any, some or all? Challenge any task you set yourself – “is this something I can and will do?”. There is nothing more depressing and ‘productivity-killing’ than long list of unacheieveable tasks, so take them off!
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