The honey-do list

Everyone has one… affixed to the fridge, or in a “job jar”, or an assortment of sticky notes scattered around the house.  Things to do.  The more organized of us religiously make notes, then spend time crossing off items as proof of accomplishment.  The less organized but well-meaning of us write the lists, get stressed and take a nap.

There are countless approaches to managing things to do, which all may be summed up as:

• Identify what you have to do.
• Do it.

Each of us has probably done several workshops on how to prioritize and manage the things we need to do so we’re not overwhelmed.  And we’ve practised them, with varying degrees of success.  But we still put things off.

How do you get through that wall of inertia to accomplish things?  Just do something.  Anything.  Preferably something related to the thing you need to do.  For instance, if you have a policy paper due at the end of the week, but you’d rather untangle a pile of yarn than reread the same document again, simply start reading it.  After 15 minutes, take a break.  Stretch, try some office yoga, or walk to the break room and back.  Then resume reading.  You’ll get through the task that you were delaying, and then you can spend more time on other stuff.

If you’re stuck on the same paragraph, look away, scribble some notes, take a few deep cleansing breaths, and read the next paragraph. 

If the challenge is that stack of filing that still needs to be done, pick up a handful of the papers and process them.  Do this for a few minutes each morning and afternoon, and the pile will go down.

When you’ve completed your task, give yourself a reward.  Try that new tea flavour at your favourite tea shop; spend an extra half hour playing with your dog; soak in the tub for a few extra minutes.  Something scaled to the size of your accomplishment.  So the diamond necklace is probably over the top for finishing an assignment, unless you just saved the world from complete destruction

So with the end in mind, GO DO IT!