Forcing The ‘Just Do It’ habit: The Calendar
In the previous post, we talked about scheduling projects and tasks in a calender so that we know what to do next. Here are some things I discovered as I made the Calendar part of my daily habit.
The Calendar is probably the most important part in my effort of getting everything organized. This is where my To-Do list “flushes” to and each task gets an assigned time where it is actioned! This is where we will focus most of our creativity and energy each day, ie: It is important to have a good Calendar. For that reason, get a Calendar that is portable, easy to be ‘writen onto’ and easy to ‘refer to’.
I personally use the phone calendar on my lovely E71. It is linked directly to the Microsoft Exchange which means my calendar is backed up onto the internet every 15 minutes. There are some people who still prefers pen and paper which is totally up to you.
Discipline Is Overrated: It Is Easier Than You Think.
There are also a few rules I made for myself with The Calendar:
The tasks are prioritized here and the more important time critical tasks are put in first.
Anything that is not done yet must be rescheduled according to priority. When you action a task, ask yourself the question: what’s next? If there is a next action, put it into a To-Do list or directly schedule the actionable task into the Calender. IF there is no next action, then the project is done!
When scheduling, there are 3 possibilities: Do, Delegate and Schedule taks.
Do: If the task only takes a few minutes to complete and is actionable instantly, do it! Instead of using the time to schedule it, doing it will make more sense.
Delegate: If it is something that other people are more suitable for, put a time into the Calender to contact this person to Delegate. Then put another task onto the Calender to check up on the progress.
Example: “ 01/09/2009-Clean Backyard-See if Yasuo can find out the price of a Garderner”
“03/09/2009-Clean Backyard- Check with Yasuo if he has found price”
Schedule action: Put in a reasonable and practical time and duration for the action in the Calender. Example: “Clean Backyard-Call garderner” or “Clean Backyard-Cut grass and weed 2 hours”.
Don’t fit impossible amount of work into one day of your Calender. Include in the Calender quality time for yourself, your family and your friends. These are the things that will keep you happy and sane.
Conclusion: Get Focused
It is important to understand that there is only one of us. There is no need for you to actually feel guilty about not being able to do 10 things at once! In fact the stress will get in the way of what is important: Getting 1 thing done at a time.
Removing this guilt and stress will greatly contribute to your anti-procrastination movement.
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Yasuo Long believes that all employees should have the right to design their lifestyle according to their needs in order to maintain their health, their relationships and their happiness. In pursuit of this, he quit the 9-to-5 and became a telecommuter to give himself the time and mental freedom to discover what it really means to live with direction and purpose.
