Tag: Control

Sometimes Your To-Do List Is Best Left Unfinished

Posted on by Greg

Rupert's cupboard is empty.

On Monday we discussed using context and prioritization to better organize our to-do lists. Keeping the highest priority items at the top of our lists ensures that we’re getting the right things done in order to make real progress toward achieving our goals. Less important tasks get relegated to the bottom of the list and naturally fall off the list altogether when their time passes or we move on to bigger and better things.

Yahoo! CEO Marissa Mayer likes things this way, recognizing that if she ever got to the bottom of her to-do list it would mean she had spent valuable time doing things that weren’t her priority.

What items are hanging around on your to-do list that just don’t matter? Obviously some things (like, say, paying taxes) have to be done whether we can be bothered or not, but other tasks are only important when we first add them to the list. Time and hindsight exposes such activities as either being worth the effort or not and there’s no shame in changing your mind and excising those that aren’t worthwhile.

Executing such cuts here and there will render your list more manageable, resulting in less anxiety and enabling clearer focus on the things that matter the most.

You Can’t Create A New World Until You Handle This One

Posted on by Greg

Rupert is out to create a new world.
On Monday we discussed the importance of establishing a productivity system that will turn our many inputs into valuable outputs. David Allen, the author of Getting Things Done, recently offered this reminder about just how important these systems are:

Our systems must be durable, adaptable and robust. They’re built not only to help us organize the chaos of the present, but also to serve as a foundation for a future that we haven’t even imagined yet. There will simply be no time to make those dreams a reality if we’re in a constant struggle with the demands of the moment, so get your system right! When it’s humming along nicely in the background and your mind is finally free to imagine a new world, turn your system into overdrive and deliver.

You Control Your Own Reality

Posted on by Greg

The War of Art by Steven Pressfield

The professional cannot allow the actions of others to define his reality.

This quote appears in The War of Art by Steven Pressfield. It’s a must-own for creatives especially but will inspire anybody looking for some motivation. Slowly Pressfield explores the causes of creative resistance before urging you to “turn pro” and then guiding you through some pretty heady self-actualizing pondering. I can’t recommend the book enough and you’ll see Pressfield mentioned often on this blog and other personal development sites (in fact, an entry on his blog was a weekend reading suggestion of mine just last week). His ideas make sense and if his calls to action don’t mobilize you then, well, you may not have a pulse.

The quote of the moment falls in line with our Monday discussion about defining yourself. Once you’ve figured out who you are and what you want to be (and do), one of the hardest obstacles to overcome will be other people. In the age of social media and instant feedback (you could go to the comments right now and tell me how you feel about this article) everybody is a critic and some are less thoughtful about it than others.

Pressfield presents this quote after a story about Tiger Woods being distracted by a camera flash while playing in The Masters during his prime. Woods calmly stopped his swing, collected himself and drove the ball a mile down the fairway. Maybe the flash was a mistake, maybe it was intentional – but the reason wasn’t relevant to Woods and his reaction reflected that. The professional didn’t allow the action of another to enter the equation of his own success. Woods went on to win the tournament.

How often in the course of your day do the actions of another person threaten to derail your day? Or week? Or career? Are you willing to cede that kind of control to other people? Jerks and critics will come and go but – as Pressfield says – you will have to continue to show up or else you’ll never realize your dreams. Others only have the control that you grant them, so be very careful about who you give that kind of power to.

The next time somebody threatens to derail you – whether by accident or on purpose – remember that the only actions you can control absolutely are your own.

Reset the mechanism and go about your business.

You Are The Sole Author Of Your Life Story

Posted on by Greg

How will your life story read?

Every kid has that fantasy career when they’re growing up: firefighter, police officer, movie star, author, etc. For me the dream was to be an astronaut and walk on the moon. Unfortunately, two realities brought me down to Earth (see what I did there?):

  1. I was not interested in acquiring the math and science background that such a career would require.
  2. We don’t fly to the moon anymore so why even bother?

As we mature, most of us abandon those childhood dreams due to similar reality checks. In the process we lose that part of us that could put a cardboard box on our head, call it a space helmet and envision no future in which we are not exploring the lunar landscape. We stop calling ourselves astronauts-in-training and we get on with life. Mortgages can’t be paid with hopes and dreams, after all.

Unfortunately, these self-inflicted limitations that we place on our imagination and self image begin to hold us back from accomplishing the dreams that are in reach.

Say you want to be a writer – what does it take? As near as I can tell, all you have to do is write.

That’s right: the mere act of writing automatically makes you a writer. No MFA required.

Want to be an actor? You don’t need drama school – you just have to act.

Want to play guitar? Strum a guitar and you’re a guitar player.

You see the pattern here. Am I simplifying things? Absolutely. Am I over-simplifying? Not at all.

Read back over the past few sentences. You’ll notice that I didn’t give you one step instructions on how to be F. Scott Fitzgerald, Leonardo DiCaprio or Dave Matthews. All I did was show you what it takes to begin down those particular paths.

One thing you will never encounter is a best-selling author who never wrote a word. I’ve told you how I feel about math and even I can see that this doesn’t add up.

Your experiences between your childhood dreaming and your present reality might make you feel as though it takes a publishing deal to be considered a writer but this is a lie: all it takes to be a writer is to write.

You are the sole author of your life story. If you want there to be any possibility that the story ends with “and all of his albums went platinum” then the next chapter must begin with “He picked up the guitar and began to strum”.