Lists are great – a systematized, orderly way to keep yourself on task and keep track of tasks.
Except of course that lists are usually an excuse – an excuse to do everything but the real work we have to do.
Some lists, full of seemingly important stuff, actually just say:
- Stall
- Stall
- Procrastinate
- Put stuff off
- Stall some more
- Look busy
- Have a meeting that looks busy
- Etc.
(By the way, your inbox is just a fancy list. And don’t get me started on your Facebook / Twitter feed).
So how about this: keep the list, work the list, but act based on the knowledge that you’ll never get to the end of the list. Knowing that, why not commit, once a day, to add one thing to the list (just one!!) that’s hard or scary, and commit to getting that thing done today.
Hard and scary is, it turns out, a pretty great proxy for “worthwhile.”
One item, once a day, every day, that terrifies you.
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