Not accomplishing enough in your day?
Upon examination, you will likely see sabotage in your list-making.
As you check off your to-do’s throughout the day, if you’re like the rest of us, you’re probably adding more things to the bottom of that same list. Cross off and replace, cross off and replace… the dance we do.
No one else will see you doing this and you may not physically write down your new to-do’s, but those items seem to find a way of creeping in. They’re most certainly there. And they’re there because you put them there, presumably so you can get ahead, get a jump on tomorrow, get even more done.
Am I right?
It’s okay, I do it too, particularly when I’ve completed a to-do item ahead of schedule.
Woohoo! I’m rockin’ and rollin’! What more can I do?!
Productivity is invigorating, but if we keep responding to the call, our list never shrinks. It’s like a hallway in a bad dream, stretching out as you run down it, the boogie man nearing you from behind, waiting for you to run out of breath.
You can beat it though.
At that crucial moment of crossing off an item, when your mind tries to trick you into doing one more thing with the promise of free time in the future, take the free time now.
Celebrate the cross-off. Let the openness stay open. If only for a few seconds.
Enjoy watching the hallway shrink and the glowing white door in front of you come closer. And, above all, remember the thing we tell our kids over and over again, but seem to forget ourselves:
There’s no such thing as the boogie man.