My "to do" list
I bought myself a couple of colored dry erase boards to put on my fridge so I can physically write down reminders and notes and such.
One is dedicated to my to do list. I initially started by brainstorming all the things I want to do from the time I get home to the time I leave for work. It was bloody exhausting just looking at that list. I found myself intentionally avoiding even looking at it!
So I pared it down a while ago. It has only two mandatory items on it:
1. Speak gently within.
2. Start and finish ONE THING.
The first one is a reminder, as simple as possible, to negate the inner turmoil of self doubt and criticism and nudge me towards awareness of what is going on between my ears. I control what I say to myself. I can make it something good, even when failing at something. I had direct experience with failure recently. And it didn't kill me! In fact, the failure encouraged me to push into learning rather than running away or feeling bad about the failure. It taught me. And it taught me better than any positive experience or success would have. My dialog through the failures was, 'What do you think went wrong?' and "You tried! So that's already a step in the right direction. If you hadn't even risked doing a new thing, you were DOA." I'm calling myself brave. Often.
The second item is just an urging to get rid of the litany of open tasks in life and make small steps of progress. If it's a work day this one thing is a specific tangible deliverable. It might be a fifteen minute task or a four hour task. But it is ONE THING. Start to finish. Something I can point to and say I DID THAT. Therefore, the day was productive. And then I can move on to the next thing.
Life is fleeting. So much of it is within my own control to decide whether it is happy or sad, success or failure, joyful or painful. And it starts not from my external influences changing. It starts (and ends) with my assessment. I get to choose the metric measuring success. So those are my two simple KPIs to determine my day.
Speak gently within.
Start and finish one thing.
One is dedicated to my to do list. I initially started by brainstorming all the things I want to do from the time I get home to the time I leave for work. It was bloody exhausting just looking at that list. I found myself intentionally avoiding even looking at it!
So I pared it down a while ago. It has only two mandatory items on it:
1. Speak gently within.
2. Start and finish ONE THING.
The first one is a reminder, as simple as possible, to negate the inner turmoil of self doubt and criticism and nudge me towards awareness of what is going on between my ears. I control what I say to myself. I can make it something good, even when failing at something. I had direct experience with failure recently. And it didn't kill me! In fact, the failure encouraged me to push into learning rather than running away or feeling bad about the failure. It taught me. And it taught me better than any positive experience or success would have. My dialog through the failures was, 'What do you think went wrong?' and "You tried! So that's already a step in the right direction. If you hadn't even risked doing a new thing, you were DOA." I'm calling myself brave. Often.
The second item is just an urging to get rid of the litany of open tasks in life and make small steps of progress. If it's a work day this one thing is a specific tangible deliverable. It might be a fifteen minute task or a four hour task. But it is ONE THING. Start to finish. Something I can point to and say I DID THAT. Therefore, the day was productive. And then I can move on to the next thing.
Life is fleeting. So much of it is within my own control to decide whether it is happy or sad, success or failure, joyful or painful. And it starts not from my external influences changing. It starts (and ends) with my assessment. I get to choose the metric measuring success. So those are my two simple KPIs to determine my day.
Speak gently within.
Start and finish one thing.
This ought to be everyone's to-do list. Think how much we could actually get DONE!
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