"Stuff is like a gas; it expands to fill the space available." —George Carlin
"Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion." —"Parkinson's Law" (named for British naval historian Cyril Parkinson)
You've got plenty of stuff to do, and you probably have a list sitting on your desk somewhere right now spelling out what you need to do by the time the day ends. But how many of the items on that list are contributing to the quality of your work and your life, and how many are there because you have this vague feeling you need to do them?
It's easy to get lost in minor tasks, the stuff that Stephen Covey would put in the "urgent but not important" quadrant, or even the dreaded "not important, not urgent" square. If you work in a company with several layers of management, your entire day might fall into those categories. But as we've discussed earlier this month, your time is a finite resource, and so is your energy. Are you getting the most out of those resources?
What I'd like to suggest may be a bit daunting and even, ironically, time-consuming, but it's a pretty important step in directing your time: make The Big List. You know, the 5-, 10-, 30-year goals. What do you want your life to look like in 20 years, that sort of thing. It's a lot to chew on, I know, but those years are going to pass no matter what, like waves on an ocean. Why not know where you'd like to point your boat on those waves?
After you've made The Big List—well, first of all, give yourself a high-five and a treat, because that was some heavy lifting you just did. Then, think about breaking that list down into 5-year units, 1-year units and eventually quarterly and monthly units. (Then have another high-five and a treat, because, again, major work done.)
Of course, our lives aren't composed solely of what we want to accomplish. There's also a bunch of stuff we're "signed up" to do, in the form of family obligations, commitments to friends and colleagues, expectations from bosses and/or clients, self-care and care of our physical surroundings—really, that's kind of the bulk of our lives.
Make a separate list of all the stuff described in the above paragraph, plus anything of that nature I've left out, in the form of a monthly task list. Feel free to designate the daily/weekly stuff accordingly; no need to list it multiple times. Now, add in your monthly Big List items, and give everything a reasonable deadline.
Now, freak out for a minute or two, because chances are that list is insane. But recognize that that list represents all the stuff you've been keeping in your head in the form of "got to remember to..." items or items you do by rote now. That's everything you try to do in a month, and it's probably a lot. How can it be whittled down?
One of the best and simplest organizational principles is: "Eliminate what you can, and manage the rest." Is there anything you can eliminate from your list? Anything you're doing that just isn't adding any value to your life? Perhaps it can be delegated, automated or outsourced—and remember, what you're buying when you outsource isn't just the completion of the task, it's time, which is pretty damn valuable.
Once you've got your monthly list down to the essential tasks, see if they need to be broken down further. A task like "blog" is really pretty useless. But a task like "Create outline for to-do list post" is much better: it's one action that can be performed in one sitting.
Now you're ready for the final step: the weekly to-do session. I like to do this on Friday evenings, planning out the week that starts on Monday. You might prefer a Monday-morning list session or Sunday night. All that matters is that you spend some time (no more than 30 minutes) planning out how your use of time in the coming week will further what you want and need to accomplish.
Make a list of your tasks for the coming week, and please remember to be realistic. A week with 60 to-do items in it is a week destined for failure, unless each item takes a maximum of 5 minutes. Later this week, we'll talk about the best way to group these items, but just creating the weekly to-do list is a huge step in taming time.
Have any of you made The Big List and integrated it with your have-to-do lists? What's your experience been like? Let me know in the comments!
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