In his book “Getting Things Done,” David Allen points out that if you do not put everything in your life into a reliable personal organization system consisting of concrete things that you need to do, then your brain will keep on interrupting you with random worries and reminders on the order of “Oh that’s right, I need to do X and Y!” at all hours of the day and night. This is stressful and not productive. As he puts it, “if you are thinking too much about what you need to do, you are not thinking enough about what you need to do.” This is also called the Zeigarnik effect, which says that if you have a trusted plan for something, your brain will quit worrying about it.
So I have a list of to-do items, but I find having a nice timeline for the Big Things in life really helps. I thought it might be neat to share that here and perhaps spark some soul-searching for any of my many readers. So I give you my “Prepare to Move to Thailand” Omnigraffle document in all its glory. Each Sunday I update it. The columns are areas of interest and importance to me and of course time increases going down.
At a glance, I can see where I need to put more focus perhaps, and it’s clear what to prioritize in the current week and the impact of missing my deadlines.
Enjoy and stay happy out there. Oh, and by the way, this weekend is when I discover my passions. I’ll explain that in a later post. 🙂
End result is?
A) personal satisfaction
B) love and admiration by all
C) find hidden treasure
D) other
Probably A and C. And I would like B but would modify B to say “love and admiration by some.” But I don’t think that B is in my control. I believe the best course there is to be my best self, the way I want to be, and the people that like that version of me are going to support me in continuing to be that way, if that is not too confusing. 🙂