Workout:  Organize Your To-Do List

Spend 15-30 minutes on an initial brain dump, getting things out of your mind and onto a task list.  Set a timer.  Don’t feel you need to order or arrange or prioritize anything just dump the contents in your head onto a sheet of paper, a spreadsheet or digital note taker.  Categories may help in the emptying process, however, so feel free to come up with tasks from Home, Work, Finances, Email, Phone Calls, Family/Friends, etc.

The next step, according to David Allen, author of Getting Things Done, is to sort your list into “Tasks” or “Projects”, those tasks that can be grouped together or are related/dependent on each other.  Often the way the task first appears on our list is in a form that is not “actionable.”  This may require some re-writes on our part.  For example, my list may include “work on the yard” – which is a good thing according to my wife .  The problem is that “work on the yard” is a multi-task “Project” that I will need to break down into actionable tasks such as “buy gas for mower” and “rake the leaves” and “get the weed-eater back from my friend”.

As your working through your list you may find somethings are not really tasks that you can do or are related to things that don’t belong to you.  Scratch those out.

Now the next step for this workout is – nothing.  You don’t have to do any of the tasks, really.  Toss the list if you like.  Do what you want with it.  Guilt free.  You may find that in the act of creating the list you generated some enthusiasm for acting on items on the list.  Do those or don’t.  It’s up to you.

Some people find that a list like this brings a sense of order and peace.  Just seeing what you have to do on paper, nicely arranged and displayed, provides a sense of freedom.

You may find that the list has done just the opposite and it has increased your anxiety and stress.  Then your next task is to identify the task or tasks that are causing the stress.  Can you do anything about it?  If no, than your stress will do nothing for you.  If yes, ask yourself what is the very next thing you could do towards completing the task.  Then, because you have stress, do it and release it.  Then move to the next thing you could do, do it and release that.

The place where we want to be is acting upon that which can be acted upon and accepting that which we must accept.

This made me laugh and be thankful at the same time.  It’s wonderfully done but I don’t know where to or who to give credit to.

Now what are you going to do?

Imagine that you’ve just won 10 MILLION dollars. Feel good?  Feel happy?  I’ve been thinking about this preparing for an upcoming seminar and am considering it a possible alignment diagnostic tool.  If you did won, unexpectedly, lots and lots of money, what would you do differently than you are doing now?  How would your life change? Would you still work at what you’re doing now, live where you’re living now, etc?

…or rather, look for the good in others.  This week find something positive to say to every person you meet and interact with.  That’s EVERY person, 100% of your interactions looking for the good and the positive in others.

Share your thoughts, problems and/or questions in the comments section.

*thanks to Tom W. for the workout idea.

This is really bad.  I mean, I knew that a target of 50 smiles a day would be challenging but this is really pretty pathetic.  I started on Monday and my total for week-to-date (Thursday) is 17!  That’s the total!  The last time I did this my score was low as well but not like this??!!  What’s going on?

In analyzing my low smile-count I’ve come up with a couple possible reasons for it:

• First, I’ve just not been actively pursing this goal.  I’ve forgotten or been too busy or too flat out grumpy to do this.  To get a high smile-count I have to be looking for people to connect with.  I have to want to project and receive a happy face.  If I’m walking around doing my version of Ebenezer Scrooge than for sure I’ll be in the single digits daily.

• Another reason (and I’m not looking for excuses) is that other people are not actively pursing this goal.  I walked through the hardware store this afternoon focusing on the positive and looking to make eye contact and get the smile.  Out of dozens of people I walked past only two people were aware of or acknowledged my existence.  (I got one smile and one “what’s up” nod that my son wouldn’t let me count because it wasn’t technically a smile.)  Everyone’s busy and in their own private atmosphere.  Why should they go out of their way to acknowledge a stranger?  What’s in it for them?  The question, even as I pose it here, strikes me as related to a change that I’ve observed in the raw friendliness pattern of our human interaction.  With the catchy phrases we hear about “stranger danger” why am I surprised that “friendliness” is not a stronger value in our culture?

I’ve found that I have to put myself into places and a mindset where I can interact with people in a friendly fashion.  Sounds easy but sometimes I get stuck in my reclusive, Thoreau mindset and find it hard to get out.  This is not an easy workout for me but so what.  By making this an official workout there is accountability and it keeps it at the top of my mind.   Without it I find myself drifting towards a fortress mentality that doesn’t allow for open and positive interactions.  In fact, I see more clearly how, in the languages of some primitive cultures, the word for stranger and enemy are the same.