What you are about to read could revolutionize not only your time and task management but your whole life. This article will show you specific, easy to implement and easy to follow steps to:
be massively more productive than you are right now
enjoy your whole life much more
and end each day with a feeling of satisfaction and victory.
What's the Problem? You or the System?
You've heard it from the experts all those years. You must keep a to-do list. You followed their advice, but despite their promises of making you happy and free from all the burdens of guilt, do you still procrastinate on those important A-tasks? Do you still feel overwhelmed by all those tasks you've got to do? Do you feel like there is no end in sight since there are more new tasks coming at you and no matter how hard you work, your lists are getting longer and longer?
But wait ... maybe you aren't the problem like your guilt feelings have stated for all those years? Maybe the problem is with the wrong system itself.
Maybe your to-do list is even keeping you away from achieving much more and at the same time feeling good about it. Maybe your to-do list increases your fear and agony and even nourishes your procrastination habit more than anything else? Maybe it is slowly killing all the joy, ambitions and excitement that you should enjoy while living and working? Maybe it is time to throw those old beliefs about to-do lists out of the window and find out a better way? Are you ready for that?
I could show you a better way to enjoy working at your tasks again, installing new personal power within you and enabling you to end each day with a great feeling of satisfaction and victory.
But before I can do that, I must show you, what is wrong with the old paradigm of to-do lists.
The Old Paradigm - to Do Lists, the Carrot, and the Stick
What Does To Do Mean to You?
Now let's first start by finding out, what the “TO DO” in to-do list stands for.
Take a look at the tasks in your list and ask for each one the following question:
Is this a task, that I HAVE TO DO or is it a task that I WANT TO DO?
How do you feel about those tasks? If you are like most of us, you could easily write above your list: "THINGS I HAVE TO DO ... but don't want to". Isn't that how you feel about a lot of tasks on this list? How many of these tasks would be there by tomorrow, if I would give you all the money and time that you would ask for, and you could leave your job and all dependencies and become free in all areas of life? How many tasks from this list would still be there? I guess a lot (if not most) you would kick out with a smile.
Who Is in Control?
If you answered that TO DO for you feels like "I HAVE TO DO" then you definitely feel out of control in your life. Life for you feels like others are dictating you what you have to do, through what they expect from you. You feel obliged to do things. Most of the things you don't want to do, but you do them simply because you fear the consequences of disappointing others.
However, if you answered that TO DO for you feels like "I want to do" then you experience a sense of control in your life. Even if others state their expectancies you decide for yourself what to do and what not to do.
In essence "I have to do" gives the power away and enslaves you, while "I want to do" expresses your inner power and frees you through being true to yourself.
How Much Do You Enjoy Those Tasks?
If you already have a to-do list, take a look at it and assess how many of those tasks YOU really want to do (and the only reason is that doing those things would make you feel good). Just for fun you could give every task there a rating from 1 to 10 on how much you would enjoy doing it (10 meaning it would be so enjoyable you would pay a million bucks to be allowed to do it and 1 meaning you dislike it so much, that others need to threaten you with severe punishments to get you to do it).
If you don't feel enough joy in your life it could be that you don't do enough things that you really enjoy.
The Carrot and the Stick
Now the old paradigm is, that we are lazy creatures and need motivation in the form of the carrot and the stick to get us going. Installing different leverages of pain and pleasure is the way that people have always used to manipulate each other. I have devoted a whole article - 4 Steps to Stop Others from Manipulating You Like a Puppet on a String - on that, and you need to understand these methods of threatening you before you can become free. In the same article, I also stated why importance and urgency are mostly threats of others to keep us going and therefore not good to tell us what we really want.
The New Paradigm - Decisions and Commitment
Decisions - the Way of Free Choice - or Living in Reality and Still Enjoying Life
Now wouldn't it be nice if we only had to do things that we wanted and none of what others want from us? Well, this is obviously an illusion. There will always be people who want you to behave in a specific way and expect you to do certain things. And you do the same with other people too. So we have to find a way to balance this. And therefore, make sure you get your paycheck next week too.
Besides "I WANT TO DO ..." and "OTHERS WANT ME TO DO ..." there is a 3rd way. This way is the way of making a decision for yourself. It is the way of "I DECIDE TO DO ...".
Now you might not enjoy doing your income taxes, but you can make a conscious decision to do it anyway because you can see a reason why you need to do it. Making a conscious decision always comes in hand with finding a good WHY.
"Why is it beneficial for me to do it?".
That is the way your brain evaluates those things. And when it comes up with a good enough why it enables you to decide to do something although you might not enjoy the process itself. But you will enjoy the benefits you get from it.
So doing your income tax might feel like a pain in the a**, but once it is done you feel relieved. Don't you know it already?
Fear and Procrastination - the blocks to a fulfilled life
But why are you not doing it? In one word ... FEAR.
You are afraid that your boss will fire you when you deny working on weekends.
You are afraid to tell your loved ones, that you need to work over the weekend for a certain time to increase their quality of life in the long run.
So you procrastinate, because that is the one method that your subconscious mind tries, to keep that pressure and fear away from you. Procrastination is not a sign of you being lazy. It is a sign of feeling overwhelmed and threatened. It fears to pay the (possibly only imagined) price or consequence of a task at hand. It is a subconscious approach to coping with a painful situation. However, it might not be the most useful approach in solving the situation.
How to solve this whole dilemma and escape procrastination?
What you must achieve is to get yourself back in a situation of control.
You must know what you want to do, AND what you decide to do because you want the beneficial results of the tasks. You must know what price you are willing to pay for each task, and you must communicate with your subconscious about it so that it loses or lowers its fear about the consequences.
There is one key to do all of this - DECIDE!
You can make a decision to do something:
although you might not like it
although you are afraid of it or where it might lead you to
That is the power of decision. When you combine it with the power of knowing what you want to do and why you want to do things, you can become a free person, even if you have to do things you don't like or be afraid of.
For those tasks, that you hesitate to do from your whole heart
find out, what price you have to pay in order to get it done.
Then find out, why you want to do it.
When you have these 2 factors you can consciously decide, whether you want to do something or not.
Now without anymore theory - let's jump into the practical application of all this.
IOD+C - the New System of Personal Control
The method I am about to share with you is abbreviated to 3 letters, standing for the 3 lists and the 3 areas of focus that make up the whole system.
I: What do I want?
O: What do Others want from me?
D+C: What do I Decide to do and Commit to do?
It is a simple system, which can be easily installed, followed by and adapted to nearly any way that you want to keep it.
Here is how to design your new system for freedom, focus and self-control.
The IOD+C System revealed
Make 3 lists. These could be 3 sheets of paper in a ring binder divided by tabs. It could also be implemented with most electronic software programs and gadgets.. Alternatively, you can use this with a simple text editor or word processor.
Create 3 lists and on the top of them write:
List 1: I = Things I want to do
List 2: O = Things Others want me to do
List 3: D+C = Thinks I Decide to do and Commit myself to do.
List 1 and 2 (I and Others) are the Source Lists and List 3 (Decide and Commit) is the Action List.
The Source Lists
These 2 lists are your containers for storing all tasks that might come to you.
List 1: I
On "List 1: I" you write down all the things that YOU really want to do.
A tip:
Listen to yourself and feel if you would get real pleasure from doing it. If you wouldn't get pleasure from doing and/or from achieving it, it shouldn't go on this list.
List 2: O
On "List 2: O" you write down all the things other people want you to do. It could be that the majority of your tasks go in here.
Some tips:
You should begin the tasks with the name of the person wanting you to do it.
The focus of these tasks is, that others want you to do these things more than you want to do them. As an example: for most people doing income taxes would clearly go here.
On List 1 and 2 you also make a quick note on what the price to pay is and why you want to do it. If there is a REAL due date (not something that you or others make up to get you going) you could also note it here.
Example: You could write on List 2:
"IRS: Doing income tax - Price: 4 hours - Why: I want to feel the relief of being on time with it, and I look forward to my tax return"
Note that you should only write down, why YOU want to do it, and not why others want you to do it.
The Action List
List 3: D+C
On "List 3: D+C" you write down for each day which tasks from List 1 and 2 you decide and commit to doing on that day.
Some tips:
Please don't overfill this list and don't think that just because a task seems urgent, that would mean it must go in here. No - drop urgency and drop importance if possible at all, since those reflect most of the times the importance & urgency of others, not your own
This system should not help you by adding even more stuff into your life. More stuff or things to do and more productivity will not help you to lead a happy life. Read this excellent article from zenhabits.com: Get Less Done: Stop Being Productive and Enjoy Yourself.
You write down only the things that you really commit to achieving that day. So don't put 20 tasks there, but select only a handful. If you finish this list early, you can go to your other 2 lists and pull out other tasks there again. Or you can enjoy your leisure time and end your day soon with a feeling of victory.
It is of vital importance that you end your day with a feeling of control and victory so you should really go for finishing your daily D+C List. End your day with a small routine of celebrating your victory (a pad on your back or a little reward).
If you need more than one day for a task, write down only how much time you would commit on that day for the task and then do it.
If you finished a task, you strike it through on both lists (D+C and the Source List).
That is the whole system.
I told you it would be easy to implement and maintain. But don't let its simplicity fool you - it is a powerful system and has the ability to change your life. Give it 30 days and you will see miracles happen to your productivity, feeling of happiness and personal power. Give it a try - and report back to me.
Now what ... FAQ addition to the rules
Q: What if I didn't finish my D+C List?
A: You should really try to finish. If you cannot finish it, because something really urgent (like an accident or an ill child) comes in your way, then that's fine. But don't let this happen due to non-urgent, non-important stuff or helping other people resolve problems, that fall into their responsibility.
If you continuously fail to finish your D+C list, you should better go for even fewer tasks on your D+C list first. Remember if you finish your D+C list early, you can always add more during the day. Keep in mind, that the important thing is to recreate your trust in yourself with this list. By making a commitment and keeping it, you will go stronger in your decisiveness as well as your personal power. Every day that you end with a kept promise to yourself is like making a big deposit in your mental account of trust. Not keeping your commitment for several days will reduce that deposit pretty fast. Don't let that happen.
Q: What about things no one else wants from me, but that I still feel more like I have to do them, like cleaning the house?
A: With those tasks, you shouldn't write down the boring things that you dread to do. You should better write down why you want to do it (remember a strong "why" will always make it happen), what it is that you want in the end. You could write. "Clean the house and enjoy the power and peacefulness of a clean house in order". You should always write down why you want to do things and not why you don't want to do it. Power follows Focus. So decide where you want to put your focus on.
Q: How about Projects?
A: You could use special lists for projects but each task must reflect, whether it is something you want or others want from you. Then you can decide to put it on your Action List (List 3 - D+C) for that given day or not. I have separate lists for each bigger client of mine. I also have separate lists for bigger projects.
Q: How about Weekly Planning?
A: I am a big fan of weekly planning too - so after a while of following this above-mentioned system, I would advise you to add another piece of paper, where you write down what you decide and commit to doing for that week. With this, you have a weekly D+C List and a daily D+C List. On your daily D+C-List, you first put those tasks that you want to do from your weekly D+C-List and then could add more from List 1 (I) and List 2 (Others).
