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I had a mini internship in New York City between my sophomore and junior year of college. I didn't know anyone in the program. We had a little "get-to-know-you" before we went. They asked us whether we prefer things to be planned or spontaneous. I remember telling the group, fully sincerely, that I am down for planned spontaneity. Apparently that was funny.
I'm a project manager for my day job and about as left-brained as they come. My buddies used to make fun of me for always needing to have a "plan." "What's the plan, Lunt?" Needless to say, I am the type of dude to have a to do list.
To do lists are great for mental health. They take the things that are bouncing around in your brain and put them onto paper. This is a good thing. Early humans didn't have to worry about much other than surviving and reproducing. Two things. Pretty straightforward. In the 21st century, we've added a lot more complexity to our lives, which makes it super easy to get stuck ruminating. There's no simpler way to solve that then to toss it on a piece of paper. But if you're anything like me, you'll end up with a to do list for your day that is impossible to complete.
But if you're anything like me, you'll end up with a to do list for your day that is impossible to complete.
I'll stare at the list with a pit in my stomach about how much there is to do. Sometimes it can be so overwhelming that I don't know where to start. I'll start to procrastinate, which just delays the problem and squeezes the time further, which makes me more stressed, which makes me want to procrastinate.....
Point being - the to do list, while useful, can be overdone. It can be hard to get momentum in the face of a massive list.
This is where the accomplished list comes in. Imagine you have a list with 15 things on it. You work tirelessly all day and only get 10 of them done. You woke up with 15 things to do, and have a gap of 5. I used to look at that as falling short. But the to do list is arbitrary. What if you looked at it as, this morning I had zero things accomplished, but now I have 10 things accomplished? It's a shift in thinking, but it's incredibly helpful. It lends itself to momentum versus lending itself to being daunting and overwhelming.
Like all tools, this is not a silver bullet. It's still important to find balance. If you completely throw away your to do list, you'll probably end up with some issues. The to do list is still useful and important. As discussed, it helps avoid rumination. It gets things out of our head and on paper. The problem is that it can feel insurmountable. But, it gives us direction. Conversely, if we lean too far into the accomplished list, you might find that you feel like you have no direction. You aren't sure where to start. It's two sides of the same coin. One is feeling overwhelmed by having too many things to have to do, the other is feeling overwhelmed by having too many options.
My approach to this has been to carve out time for the things I "have" to do (to do list) and block space for stacking accomplishments (accomplished list). Remember planned spontaneity? haha...
A good place to start with this is to do it on the weekend. Write it all down. Laundry, folding clothes, doing dishes, hanging out with friends, being outside, eating a healthy meal, yada yada yada. I remember the first time I did this. I was totally blown away by the amount of things I do in a day. And it got me fired up.
At the end of the day, we're doing the same things. But in one scenario, we're fired up. In the other, we're overwhelmed.
This is what we're looking for. We're looking to shift our perspective. At the end of the day, we're doing the same things. But in one scenario, we're fired up. In the other, we're overwhelmed. In one, we feel abundance, and in the other we feel scarcity.
