Don’t you find that your TODO list keeps growing and growing? I know mine does… and I noticed that for a lot of people in my office the same was true.
Every day we start with a TODO list, only to find that by the end of the day most things are still on the list – and then some!
I think this might have something to do with how our brain works… I am no scientist or academic scholar, but I think that our brain tricks us into this false sense of security “it’s OK that you haven’t done this task yet, after all – it’s a TODO… it’s to be done sometimes in the future… not necessarily today”
My brain tells me this most of the time! (nasty little thing) so I decided to change the rules of the game. Not just for me but for everybody in the company:
Every day during our huddle we tell each other what we are working on and what our roadblocks are and we finish with one (1) thing that MUST BE DONE before the end of this working day. And the next day we tick it off the list. Did you do your ‘must be done’ yesterday? If not – why not? what happened? I thought it was a MUST be done…
This little game of changing semantics makes us focus on the one thing that is more important than anything else. I MUST finish this today to stay on track to achieve my target for today/this week/month/quarter/ year
It makes us think about the steps that are needed to stay on track and the things that need to be finished to achieve our goals.
It also stops the brain from playing games with me – every time it tries to tell me that it’s OK to procrastinate I say back to it: NO it is not a TODO… it’s a MUST be done today!
And you know what? It works!
Enjoy achieving your goals today – I know I am…
Ivanka
