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Something tells me your list of things to do today, may well involve a list that has been a week or more in the making. It’s probably rather long and my question to you is this…today, will you drive the list or will it drive you? For highly driven people, that can be a hard question to answer.
One of my coaching clients inspired this topic when she shared with me that though lists were really designed to liberate, they instead have a tendency to enslave. What’s on your list? Are there way more things than you could possibly accomplish today, this week, or even this month? Will you feel a sense of defeat if everything on your list is not complete by close of business today? If so, back away from the list and reevaluate. After all, the goal here is to lead your list, not to let it lead you.
If you haven’t already, put the list in priority order.
Remove from the list those things that are long term projects and will require more time than today allows. Heck, just make a list of long term projects and post it somewhere.
The purpose of a list is to get things out of your head so you can think more clearly and not have to remind yourself every five seconds of something you wanted to do. But, let’s take a look at something I also call list sickness: that’s where you do things that aren’t on that ever-important list and then go back and write them ON the list, just so you can cross them off. That’s what I call getting a bit carried away, but it happens … to all of us.
Your ability to lead you includes the skills required to manage your daily tasks and actions and for some of you, the number of those tasks that you complete will determine how good, or not so good, you feel at the end of today. Be selective about that brain dump of everything you want to achieve or accomplish or complete and only put on today’s list only those things are realistically going to be accomplished today. After all, the other piece that we often forget is to celebrate when things on the list get done. By the way, did you put celebration on your list or is checking stuff off celebration enough for you?
Remember to lead others, you must first be you and lead you will skill and expertise. Selectively listing those things you can really do just today and how you will celebrate their achievement is a first step to leading your day even more effectively. That’s your Monday Moment and I’m Monica Wofford. Lead well and of course, Stay Contagious!
