How well are you managing your effectiveness system? Is it up to date and helping you stay atop everything? Or is it a tattered, mouldering mess? More the latter? If it’s any help, you’re not alone. Many of us are in the same boat.
Why, though? What about the whole realm of focus management (a better descriptor than time management) has us falling off of the system that does us such good?
There are three related reasons:
- Incomplete habits. Adopting this effectiveness system or any other requires replacing old habits with new ones. The process of building a new habit is simple. And it is very easy to stop the process before we have firmly built the habit. Stop it too soon and we fall back to our old habits.
- Falling behind. Relying on our old habits, our system (in this case, the lists and how you work them) quickly falls out of sync and recedes into uselessness. We end up distrusting the system and seeing no need to make it current again.
- Feeling bad. With our old habits and without our system, we become overwhelmed, numb, and/or frustrated. Feeling badly, we simply cannot see how these silly little lists and all their petty little rules could ever help us manage our complex lives.
Are we doomed, alas, to struggle with our tasks?
Nah!! The solution is simple: Feel good. Then act. The wisdom of Habit #2 says that solutions become apparent when we stop, feel better, then act. Use any of the feel better tools like the flip, the ladder, telling yourself a different lie, the keep-or-toss, focus on the good stuff, and this is me.
From that better-feeling perspective, you will be able to dive back into your system. Dust off your lists and rededicate yourself to adopting some or all of effectiveness habits, one at a time. Soon you’ll be back atop your tasks and loving it.
In your corner,
Mike