Tag: lists

  • Some Days Are Like This….

    email

    Sometimes it is too hot to think!

    So on those days – I do my thunking in the morning and in the afternoon I look at my inboxes [yup more than 1] and wonder how I wind up with so so much email.

    Wasn't the computer age supposed to make it easier to communicate?

    Maybe it's made it too easy.

    I am on lists and more lists and then even more lists. Most of the emails are not even personal anymore.

    So on this hot afternoon I culled, unsubscribed and cleaned out old emails I had once marked as "must read" – but must was so long ago – if it was important I know it will come back again.

  • Do You Make New Year Resolutions? Why I Don’t

    no_resolutionsOver the years I have learned how to deal with certain aspects of my own brain or mind.
     
    It does not like words that sound like “commands” and resolutions seem to fit into that category.
     
    Sentences that contain should, will, and ought fragments tend to create an opposite effect or they instill the idea that such fragments have already been taken care of.
     
    It’s why to-do lists don’t work for my head – once I write down the list of what I am “supposed” to do – my mind treats the list as “things already accomplished.”
     
    Worse is that the phenomenon is not one that happens 100% of the time – but it happens often enough that I’ve had to find ways to deal with my own type of brain. And I do that mostly by making lists of “suggestions.”
     
    Instead of calling a list “to-do” I mentally call it something like “it would be great to get these things done this week, month or year.” On paper the list has no real title and on my computer the document is often called “ideas.”
     
    Believe me – I have read and tried most gurus fail-safe ways to organize and plan – and they don’t work or they work for a bit and then stop working.
     
    With 2 major degrees in hand I know I can actually accomplish scheduled things – so I have finally stopped reading and trying “how to get and stay organized” material and have adopted a more casual approach to my work life.
     
    And I feel like I need to add a warning like they say on TV – “don’t try this at home.”
     
    Maybe unless you too have tried all the other ways of working?
     
     
    comments? thoughts? thank you
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