Transcript:

I love to write things down. Especially things that I want to remember, but don’t want to deal with at the moment. I feel especially proud of myself when I make lists. But how many of us feel good about those same lists when we see them again later in the day or revisit them the next day?

My Name is Shaun McMillan and this is the Best Class Ever.

All of us have things we need to do but are avoiding, things we want to do but aren not really priority, and things we would like to avoid altogether. I spoke about this a couple lessons ago in an episode titled, “How to Get Critical Work Done: The Eisenhower Decision Matrix.” 

But the point of all of this is to both get stuff done, and to feel good about it afterwards. While keeping a to-do list may help to get things done, it doesn’t make us feel good about it afterwards. So how can we redesign this process to create more positive results? 

You Aren’t Always Your Best–Design For It

I recently listened to an interview of Marina Nitze on a podcast titled, “People I Mostly Admire.” She is a business process consultant and was one of the youngest people ever hired to a chief position in the U.S. government at the age of 27. She knows how to get things done. She realized that we often take on easy tasks when we have the most energy, and postpone difficult tasks without tackling them until we are low on energy or motivation. This is terrible because if we fail to get that task done, and postpone it, the task only induces that much more anxiety the next time we approach it. Don’t let a task turn into a monster. 

To solve this problem Marina labels her tasks as either high energy, low energy, or leisure tasks depending on which mode she should be in to tackle it. She makes sure to do high priority tasks that require a lot of energy and serious cognitive ability during the time of day when she is at her optimum performance. You know, like most of us, after we’ve had plenty of rest and a good cup of caffeine. That is not the time to do easy mindless tasks like laundry which requires no creative thinking or patience. That is the time to tackle creative projects or tasks that require a lot of patience and grit. 

For me, writing and creating original art requires me to have a lot of energy and be in a really good mood. Someone once asked a famous author, “Do you write at the same time everyday like a job, or do you write when you feel like it–when you feel inspired?” He responded, “I only write when I feel inspired. Luckily for me inspiration strikes every morning when I sit down to write at 9:00 a.m.” 

Don’t Remind Yourself of Your Failure. Schedule a Success

I mentioned this in the previous lesson but it bears repeating. If you have creative work that you hope to accomplish, don’t just put it on a to-do list. Do not just give yourself a reminder. All a reminder will do is remind you how you are failing to make progress, and give you another opportunity to actively postpone the task again, spiraling you into a feedback loop of repeated disappointment. Instead of a reminder, you need to schedule a block of time to work on it. And try to schedule it during a time when you will have enough energy and be in a good enough mood to feel like doing it. 

Be Bored. Don’t be a Slave to What you Feel Like Doing

If that time comes and you still don’t feel like doing it, that’s ok. But don’t do anything else at that time. Just sit and do nothing. Turn off your phone. Remove all distraction. Just be alone with your thoughts. Be bored. Come up with a simple plan for dealing with anything that might be blocking you and schedule another time to deal with those obstacles. Then you can consider this in itself as progress and go on to something else without feeling guilty. 

Guilt

What we are really dealing with here is guilt. The guilt we feel for not making progress. The guilt we feel for procrastinating. The problem with a to-do list is that even if you work on a task there are a lot of times when for one reason or another you don’t perfectly complete the task. So now, even though you have made progress, you don’t get the satisfaction of removing it from your task list. In fact, you could work really hard, and feel like there is nothing to show for it afterwards. It is simply a poorly designed solution.

We need the satisfaction of feeling like we did a good job. Even if we didn’t complete the task we should still feel positively about the concrete progress we have made. 

Get Away from Me You Schedule Nazi

Now I admit that different people have different personality types or different temperaments. Not all of us love to be organized and on time all of the time. All of us need various degrees of spontaneity in our lives. Some of you I know really don’t like to feel trapped by a schedule. Now I’ll admit, I have become one of those extremely organized administrative personality types who love spreadsheets and are always on time. For those of you who are more spontaneous and often late, you should know, we hate waiting for you when you are late. We count every minute that you aren’t there, and multiply it by each person who showed up on time and also had to wait for you. But we forgive you because your spontaneity brings much needed life to the party.

As for me, I was not a very organized person when I was younger. But once I got into animation school I became very competitive. I wanted to be the best illustrator in my class, so I began to organize my life and production routines despite my natural temperament.

Does This Look Like You?

What I found was that keeping a strict schedule was far more liberating. Having no structure to my day meant that every time I finished something or got tired I had to deal with choosing my next task at a time when I really didn’t feel like making choices. There were times when I would wander the hallways of the school trying to think of what I should do next. Should I eat now or later? Should I keep working on my high priority project or take a break? I would walk pace back and forth in a state of analysis paralysis. Friends would see me and ask, “Hey Shaun, are you okay? You look lost.” I kind of knew what I needed to do, but I often didn’t feel like doing it right then. So then I would do less significant tasks knowing all the while that the truly important tasks were still waiting to be done, haunting me, weighing down on my conscience. Each time I postponed them I felt like a failure. Even if I worked and made a lot of progress I felt guilty at the end of the day because I didn’t know if I had really spent my day optimally or not. At the end of the day I spent my time leisurely to escape my guilt, and then felt guilty about that. 

Structure Is Liberation

Now, instead of feeling guilty about spending time leisurely, I actually plan my day and even make time in my schedule for fun leisurely activities. I can’t tell you how liberating it is to walk away from a task once your time allotted for it is up. I can keep working on it if I feel like it, or move on to the next schedule if I want. I still have the freedom to choose according to how I feel, but it’s now a simple choice between keep going or move on to the next schedule. Not an overwhelming list of options to choose from.

The biggest to-do list I keep now is the list of books, movies, t.v. shows, or games that friends have recommended to me. 

To-do lists are not all evil. They do help you to remember things you would otherwise forget. I especially like to write down insignificant little inspirations that I don’t want to spend much time on like, items I need to purchase later when I am shopping, small requests that roommates or loved ones have made that could easily be forgotten. This is what lists are good for. Small insignificant things. 

But for the significant tasks in our life, let’s use the schedule. Schedule out the ideal day you would like to have. Nothing is set in stone. You can change the schedule according to your feeling and mood as you go throughout your day. And you can even use colors to mark which ones are priority and which ones aren’t. 

Re-Order Your Lists

This categorization is extremely helpful. In fact, if you are going to keep a to-do list of significant tasks, or start with a list before transferring these tasks to your schedule, don’t forget to re-order your list. Write the list as each item comes to mind, but never forget to re-order the list according to priority. Mark absolutely have-to-be-done tasks with red or exclamation marks. Move them to the top of the list. If you address these at some point in the day, boom, you are a success. Even if you ignore the rest of the list, you don’t need to feel guilty and should reward yourself with some good old fun time.

Rest Is Important So Schedule It

In fact, you can even schedule times for fun or rest. The first time you try this you may be surprised how freeing it is to add structure to your daily life. The old you may often have found it terribly disappointing to leave important tasks undone and then give up resorting to meaningless leisure activities. The new you will see that actually it is time to have some fun, and you know that you did in fact spend significant time today making concrete progress towards your responsibilities earlier in the day even if you weren’t able to completely knock the task off your to-do list. So now you can happily enjoy your leisure time as a reward for good behavior. You have earned it. 

The old you and the new you are doing almost exactly the same behavior, but the new  you feels good about it instead of feeling guilty. 

Take Your Fun Seriously

For the truly ambitious, you can also optimize your leisure time. Instead of just relying on algorithms to feed you random suggestions, look at the list you have been keeping of good books, vidoes, and series that friends and acquaintances have recommended. Re-order the list according to which recommendations will positively inspire you to make progress towards your goals. 

Because one of the keys to working hard is resting well. 

For links to the lessons and podcasts mentioned in this episode feel free to visit me at www.BestClassEver.org