Planning on Find meaningful and creative ways to develop professional excellence on 43 Things

Find meaningful and creative ways to develop professional excellence (read all 5 entries…)

Planning — 1 month ago

I always come to the same conclusion. Maybe I should make a goal called ‘Do the things I know are right instead of knowing they’re right and ignoring them in practice’

LISTING and PLANNING. That’s what works for me. Like seriously. I guess I’m not a very structured person, I’m easily distracted and have a very selective memory.

SO I’ve made a list of tasks that need to be done this long weekend, which for me is a weekend of free lance work at home. It’s a neat little list. And it’s quite long.

I’ve listed both work tasks and stuff like washing ang groceries. It takes the damma away from work I feel.

Armed with my list I’m feeling much more focused and I feel like I’m on track. Also if I get bored of one task, it’s not like my mind can wonder aimlessly for an hour before it eventually reconnects to something else which generally turns out not to be priority in the end etc. Nope, because if I get bored of one task I can move on to another. How efficient is that!

I also notice that I ‘take breaks’, which is different from unstructured infinite procrastination. It’s like I take a break and then I get back to work. And I actually enjoy the stuff I do during that break much more I think.

Also ticking things off the list is very rewarding.

And if I sleap through for a bit I don’t feel bad or guilty, because I feel I earned it by otherwise working well on the rest and because I have a track to get back to presto, instead of a blank frame to fill with negative or unhelpful thoughts. Yay!

Now that’s the magic power of the list!

Jul 12, 06:10AM PDT 7 cheers

Comments:

Taly is excited about going to Iceland

Great idea.

I also use lists, but lately I’m not very good at keeping them (after a long period of religiously following my list – which is how it should be).

I have an idea about the ‘breaks’. I also take ones, but at the moment they are not as good as yours but usually leads to procrastination.

My idea is derived from a suggestion of a friend of mine regarding IM. In order for the break (or IM) not to take for ever, just limit it to a certain time (5 min-1 hour) and when the break is over, decide when are you going to take your next one. Allow, at least an 1.5 hour of pure work.

Jul 12, 09:23AM PDT | Thread | Respond to this

La Parisienne

Thank you!

I really wish I had a cheer for you because your commment has been so helpful, I’ve been thinking about you and how you work from home as well and kept it in mind.

I find it easy to focus and not drift away while I’m at the office (which is half the time) but on the days that I’m at home working on my own projects or on a free lance contract (which is what I’m doing at the moment) I find it somewhat harder, like it’s something I still have to learn about and improve. I guess it’s mainly about learning what works for me too, and to set the 1.5 hour of pure work as a minimum time slot as you said has been working great, so thanks for the tip!

I’m pretty happy with what I’ve achieved this long weekend, I did almost everything that was on my list and 100% of the important things were done, yay!

Hope your own work’s going well too!
xx

Jul 15, 05:28AM PDT | Thread | Respond to this 1 cheer

Taly is excited about going to Iceland