Goals are important to me. They motivate me, they remind me, they free me, they really do make me a much better person. All that said, I have realized, much to my shock and awe, that they are not for everybody. In fact some people find them threatening, stupid, even unbiblical. But since I am not one of those people I embrace another year, another excuse to dream about what could be in the form of a beautiful, impossible sheet of goals for 2019.
I read a book sometime ago - I wish I could remember what it was - but the big take-away was the "brain dump". Write everything down that is lurking in the corners of your mind, taking up productive space, and attacking you at the least convenient moment. Just put it ALL on a piece of paper. ALL of it.
What a fantastic experience.
The instruction was to set a timer for 10 minutes and write like crazy. So I did, but I started on a sticky note - I guess I thought there wasn't much on my mind. L . O . L .
It turns out I wasn't done after 10 minutes OR 10 stickies, but that was ok, I just added another one whenever I was attacked by something new. For a week. The list ranged from "vacuum under the couches" to "fund our retirement" - so comprehensive are the corners of my mind.
The next step was to organize the list into time frames to accomplish the item from, say, 15 minutes to months, or even years. When you list out how long it actually takes accomplish things that have been on your mind for months (or longer?) it is embarrassing. Seriously, anything that takes less than an hour to do, a person has NO EXCUSE for not doing in a week or less. This was all disturbingly enlightening to me.
Then I got to work. I could not believe how many items I knocked off that list in a week that had plagued me forever. It seems I consistently over-imagine how long something will take, believing it is a WAAAAY bigger deal than it actually is. Not only do I over-estimate time, but I underestimate my ability to know how to get it done. It turns out that those two things are almost never accurate. It is almost always LESS of a deal than I thought and I almost ALWAYS can figure out the next step to getting it done. I have learned a lot about myself.
My list has now morphed from sticky notes all over the house, to sticky notes that inhabited my planner for several months to a notebook that I seem to find convenient to update seasonally. I rewrite the entire list, even items that seem perpetual (like the retirement-fund thing and other jobs I keep avoiding), and add new things as they come up and refine my system. Then it's just a matter of deleting, delegating, do now, do (insert date here) and slotting those items into my monthly/weekly/daily to do list. Having a system more inclusive than a rainbow of sticky notes in the most unlikely places has not only calmed me, but given me the brain space and the confidence to continue hammering at the old things and to imagine new things!
 |
| Brain Evacuation for Fall |
No comments:
Post a Comment
Thanks for constructive and encouraging comments!