Who’s ‘ruling the roost’ when it comes to your daily workflow? For many of us (me included most days), it’s not our big-picture vision, our strategic plan, our business plan, or the big goals that we’ve set for ourselves. More often than not, it’s our to-do list and our email inbox. (For some it’s also the messages we receive through our social networks.) In a conversation with my coach last week I expressed my frustration at being so weighted by the things that I had to do that I wasn’t getting around to doing. My mood around my to-dos was a solemn one. Each to-do that was incomplete had tied to it a piece of my energy. Does that makes sense? When I looked at the list I could see that a lot of my attention was on unfinished items – tied up so that I couldn’t use it productively in other ways. It was time to take action and to pull back any wasted energy to the things that matter. (Many of us have more to-dos than can be accomplished in two life-times, so it’s a big – often emotional- hurdle to make a pact with yourself not to stress about the unimportant and to drop things off the list – or to delay them depending on how relevant they are to moving you towards the dreams and goals that will make you most happy.) This wasn’t the first time I’d had this conversation (with a coach or with myself). It seemed to be a chronic condition even though I knew better and had evidence that when I a) focus on what’s really important, b) focus my time on the activities that will move me towards my goals and c) maintain perspective and avoid going into autopilot then I tend to feel that I’m ‘on track’ and feel a sense of accomplishment. I am very productive and get through a LOT on any given week. But, why was I still feeling frustrated and down about the ‘lack of time’ that I was facing? I have over the years (and many times in any one week!) tried:
- Read every book written by productivity expert David Allen (highly recommended)
- Engaged tools such as my iCal tasks function, Omnifocus, Checklists, Word Docs, Paper Diaries.
- Done the most important tasks first thing each day
- Prioritised and reprioritised
- Not checked email every 5 mins ;-)
- Leveraged jobs to staff
All that works (for a time). It does. But I kept falling back into the feeling of too much to do and not enough time mind-spin. Change of Strategy – Be the ‘Source’ of my day My task for myself this last weekend was to revisit my prime dream and goals and to look at what I can do today, tomorrow, this week that aligns to that prime dream. What that means to me is that each day I start by designing the day, each day, being sure that I’m not working for my to-do list, but that rather that day’s to-do list reflects what I want to do that day that will move me closer to my goals. How I free myself from my todo list I’ll use me as an example to demonstrate how I freed myself from my to-do list (at least, temporarily): My prime dream includes the areas of:
- Gaining and sharing knowledge with my community
- Connecting with my community and helping them connect with each other
- Creating environments and opportunities for people to learn and grow
(Notice this isn’t three to-do items, it’s a way of being and an intention/focus. There is no end date and this is not something that I’m going to finish any time soon. But, is big enough and exciting enough that it inspires me to keep this intention in mind and to be reminded of it when I get ‘off track’.) So, as I look at my upcoming day/week, I’ve put in activities and blocks of time where I am doing tasks (a task could be reflecting, journaling – not just busy work) that aligns to that way of being. Then (because I need to reminder) I have put alarms in my diary daily to ask me each day:
“What did I do today that supports my vision?How did I connect with others? Did I gain and share knowledge? Did I create something I’ve wanted to create?”
I’m giving this a try: Take the energy that is attached to my very extensive current list of incomplete items and put it to better use – so that I’m inspired (not daunted by what lays ahead). Wish me luck! Suzi
