The key to my productivity is lists. When I don’t have one staring at me I tend to behave as if I don’t have anything truly pressing to accomplish. I allow myself to fall into this stupor of lazy inaction and it eats away my hours until only sleep remains. Of course I do have things to do. Plenty of things need doing on a daily basis, but lately I cannot convince (motivate) myself to do much of anything. Depression? I’ve addressed that side of it already on this space. The other side of the equation has to do with desire and goal setting. This equation needs to be better balanced. That is where lists come in.
When I am low everything feels out of reach. Get a soda? No, it is too tough to go all the way upstairs. Besides, it will certainly fatten me up, which will lead to heart problems and then I die. This is the classic slippery slope. A list helps with that. I can alter my thinking around measurable and reachable goals. Get a soda? Check. Then add to the list: fold laundry. Because I’m upstairs it seems a bit more feasible. Now I am feeling a sense of accomplishment and I’ve organized my day into a series of expected events and I am not left to my own devices.
My devices suck.
Now getting to the point where I actually write this stuff down is a chore in of itself. Perhaps it slides into the daily 5: Contact, Coffee, Write, Tabata, List. Yeah… that sounds fantastic. What a recipe for success this is! Now all that remains is the follow through. That topic is a post all of its own.