I was talking with the wonderful Ed Percival last week and he observed something interesting. In conversation I kept saying ‘I should do this’, ‘I should do that’. And I spoke about adding these ‘should dos’ to a list. ‘And maybe I should schedule time to do these things into the diary? 09.30, write blog post. 10.30, write proposal, 1.30 phone calls, 2.30 go for a walk, etc etc.’
Ed suggested that this to do list (or should do list!) is not very helpful. As it grows it becomes more off-putting, more likely to remain uncompleted, and more likely to create a sense of failure. I think he’s right, and this may be partly why I don’t currently keep many lists. He also wondered how I might approach these scheduled tasks if I schedule them as completed.
I’m dropping should from my ‘making stuff happen’ vocabulary, and yesterday I got a bunch of stuff done, some of it had been hanging around longer than I’d originally intended. And later this week I’m going to schedule completed tasks in the diary and see how that works. 09.30 blog post written, 10.30, proposal written, 1.30 pm phone calls made, 2.30, just returned from 2 mile walk.
I’ll let you know how I get on. Meantime, what ideas do you have for getting stuff done?
Things I know but fail to do:
Know my comfort zones, work in reverse order of preference:
9am pull out finger nails with rusty pliers on my own / run in windy conditions
5pm write blog (so Evernote can lose it grrrr:)
Anticipate stress:
It’s bizarre but knowing what I will be in a flap about next week/month/year getting really uptight about it now and acting now I think leads to less net stress. I can’t prove it though 🙂
Say yes or no:
Embarrassingly, Yoda was right. There is no “try”. There is only do or not do.
It’s always now:
This is a bit dangerous, I’ve seen this principle abused with truly catastrophic results.
On the other hand I know a chap who has a watch with no hands on which it just says, “Now!”.
Not so much a call to do everything at once as a plea not to prevaricate, typically through fear of getting it wrong.
Doing nothing is an activity:
It’s one of my favourite and most fulfilling hobbies. Oddly, it’s when I get a lot of work or thinking done.
Don’t work on trains, weekends, evenings:
So you can when you have to.
I could go on but I really need to do something with these pliers 🙂
Some great tips there thanks Anthony, you can put the pliers down now.
Michael Carty pointed out this very short #zombie clip which contains a Woulda Coulda Shoulda reference. Also, I’m sharing the link as a hark back to the good old days of #zombiehr. Enjoy:
http://youtu.be/LDJedaxA2eU
I always eat my vegetables first. Literally and metaphorically.
So does Keira, the roast chicken gets left to last as it is the fave item. Sometimes, just sometimes, I get some leftovers, so I approve of yours and her policy.