Cringe-Busting your TODO list
by Merlin Mann May 23 2005
As I’ve said before, items can sometimes linger on your TODO list a lot longer than you’d like, and it can be tricky to understand exactly why that is in each case. I’m convinced cringing is often a factor.
Being that it’s Monday, and a lot of us are planning this week’s activities, why not join me in a modest exercise.
- Print out your TODO list (alphabetically, if possible)
- Read it over—beginning to end
- Go back and circle each item that makes you cringe, or that causes you some kind of existential angst
- Per cringe item, think honestly about why you’re freaked out about it. Seriously. What’s the hang-up? (Fear of failure? Dreading bad news? Angry you’re already way overdue?)
- Now, again, per cringe item, add a new TODO that will a) make the loathsome task less cringe-worthy, or b) just get the damned thing done
- Cross the original cringe items off your list
- Work immediately on the new, cringe-busting TODO
If you could do this for just one item on your TODO list today, wouldn’t you be a little better off? Is there a quick call you could make, a draft you could edit, an email you could return, or some other piddling 2-minute task that would plane some cringe off of your hated tasks?
Imagine if you did this today for five items on your list. Now imagine you began each Monday with a Cringe Bust. Might be a handy way to pick off old items and let some unnecessary anxiety out of your working week.
(For extra credit, find the item on your list that’s been making you cringe for the longest. Anybody else turning up items that have been inducing cringes for over a month? Ouch. I suck.)
The real tooth-grinders for me...
Submitted by Brad (not verified) on May 24, 2005 - 1:20am.
The real tooth-grinders for me are always phone calls. I’ll email and fax and send carrier pigeons all day, but for some reason I just don’t like the phone - talking to people that way, rather than face-to-face (which I find generally pleasant) or textually (which I find more efficient) is just a put-off for me.
Sadly, not everyone in my life does email.
I’m not sure how to restate the Next Action “call Fred” to be less cringe-inducing, but I do have success with having a dedicated phone call night, where I get through as many as I can in one sitting, just to have them out of the way.
I think that's actually a...
Submitted by Merlin Mann on May 24, 2005 - 1:50am.
I think that’s actually a pretty good example, Brad —and FWIW, I’m with you on phone calls.
You might try something like:
- List 3 things to go over with Fred
- Read over Fred’s last email
- Prepare pre-emptive fake interruption in order to get off call with Fred
- Google Fred for embarrassing life details whose mention might keep call short
But, seriously, I know what you mean. Some cringers you just have to hold your nose and jump. Sometimes it helps to focus on the next two or three non-horrible things you can work on when the cringer is cleared away.
I just stumbled upon something...
Submitted by oldtimey (not verified) on May 25, 2005 - 9:18pm.
I just stumbled upon something similar … recently I was staring at my ever-growing task-list. “Which of these tasks do I hate the most?” I wondered, and then decided to label one: WORST. (I had to call a company back about an incorrect bill — I’d already paid it, but I was just hating the idea of trying to explain this to them.)
Then I stared at the WORST task, and all the other ones there. Within five minutes I had picked up the phone and made the call. For some reason, once I’d deemed one (but only one) action to be the absolutely most-dreaded thing possible, it took the mystique out of it! It just didn’t hold any power over me anymore.
Saturday, March 29, 2008
The jist of Getting Things Done
What’s it about?This is the best capsule description of the book that I’ve come across, far better than anything I could have come up with. David Allen, the author of the book, describes Getting Things Done as follows:Get everything out of your head. Make decisions about actions required on stuff when it shows up — not when it blows up. Organize reminders of your projects and the next actions on them in appropriate categories. Keep your system current, complete, and reviewed sufficiently to trust your intuitive choices about what you’re doing (and not doing) at any time.Basically, Getting Things Done has one overall guiding principle: write down the stuff you need to do as you think of it, then process that list when you have open time. If you have ongoing projects, keep a list or a folder for that project and check on it regularly to keep it going. That’s the nutshell of it - the book goes on to show examples of how it works and add some detail for specific situations, but that’s really all there is to Getting Things Done.
Posted by Keni Lynn at 11:01 AM 0 comments
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
how to recruit a small army
Kind of in a productivity / GTD / organization / zen kick right now. Decided to start a blog for things that will be useful for work. First one is from The Art of NonConformity about How to Recruit a Small Army -- when I first read it I thought of my children and housework, but the more I read I thought about the Student Alumni Association. But I guess it could be used for any cause, and in addition UAS Alumni & Friends.
No comments:
Post a Comment