Resolutions, To-Do Lists, To-Read Lists, Lists of Lists...
So, I was going to make this list of 101 things to do in 1001 days, but actually I'm now not sure if that is really the best way to approach life.
We tend to fill our lives with to-do lists (well, I do anyway - I have several sitting in front of me right now!)
But what possible purpose do they serve?
They just make us stressed out because we always have something left on the list.
And what happens when we do them? The act often just generates more of them!
For example - I go through periods of finding lots of interesting web sites. These then lead to other links that sound interesting, and so on. I either open them all in tabs and never get round to reading them all, or save them to delicious and never get round to reading them all.
So, I have all these lists, tabs, bookmarks, e-mails, unread blog posts, news items, various bits and pieces with stars attached to them - and they're all just to-do items. It's all just clutter, isn't it?
It's time to put a stop to it!
Of course it's good to have objectives. But I'm almost certain that having too many is just detrimental to each one of them.
To-do lists force you focus to on the small, and then you forget about the big picture. The big picture is after all what is important. If you are focussing on the big picture, the little things that you have to do will naturally get done. Won't they?
So, I'm going to try something else. I'm going to focus the big things, appreciate the small ones, and let everything else fall serendipitously into place. Less lists!
That is my New Year's Resolution.
What do you think? Are you a list-writing person? Are lists necessary or evil? Is it a good idea to attempt to minimise them? Or are they actually what drives you to get things done?
Labels: life
posted by Dan @ 12:29 AM
5 Comments:
ummm..
posted @ Sat Jan 03, 03:51:00 AMa) thanks for the post card!!
b) i need to go write my grocery list.
I've been trying to figure out how best to use to do lists and the like for the past couple of years and I think I sympathise with a lot of what you're saying. Stuff like GTD is no doubt great if you have the discipline for it, but the fact that you have to write down every little thing seems to cause more bureaucracy than the system is worth. I often find that if I write a to do list at the start of the day, there's a good chance I'll discover that in fact I shouldn't do anything on it and do something else altogether.
posted @ Sat Jan 03, 04:39:00 PMHowever, I still use todo lists for the simple fact that they get stuff out of your head. Once you instantiate a plan of any sort in reality, it suddenly becomes much easier to reason about, and you don't have to be subconciously reminding yourself about it's details all the time because you can always just check your todo list.
I'm currently using hiveminder for todo items as it's fairly powerful yet also quick to use. I don't break things down too much though so that I can concentrate on actually doing things. Maybe that's all there is to it. HTH.
I agree that lists are bad.
posted @ Sat Jan 03, 07:43:00 PMWhile I do sometimes do what you do with opening tabs of things and never reading them, I rarely go very deep unless it REALLY grabs my attention. The only lists I really maintain are the list of CD's and DVD's that I intend to buy (which is very short).
As for lists like "101 things to do in 1001 days", I think they are especially bad. When you do something, do you want to say "good, thats another thing off my list" or "wow, im really glad that I did that and ive changed in some way because of it"?
While we should always have goals, setting time limits on them tends to stress you out that they arent done, and can even rush you into doing something wrong or just too soon.
Live life as it comes, take part in the experiences it presents and don't spend half your life bogged down in writing down everything that you think you should do and forgetting all the things you have already done!
Whats important is friends and family, and everything else is just guff so you have something to talk about to people who may one day be friends or family.
Connie - thanks for your card too! It was lovely, and yes, I am not very good at answering machines!
posted @ Sun Jan 04, 12:49:00 AMMark - Thanks, I am going to check out those tools.
What strikes me now is the quite opposing viewpoints of Mark and Stuart (The King).
I think that boils down to the fact that Mark is thinking about lists as a productivity tool - something for getting things (i.e. work) done, whereas Stuart, your context is more related to personal/life-goals type lists.
So perhaps the answer is that lists are good for work and projects, but not good for life in general?
But should there be a difference? And if so, why?
Stuart - I agree with you that living life as it comes is a great philosophy, but are you saying we should set goals but have no time limit on them?
Perhaps the answer is to have to-do lists (even for life goals), but just not to take them too seriously or get at all stressed about them?
(i.e. have goals, ambitions and aims (even with time limits) but accept that many of them probably won't get done, and know that it doesn't matter)
I suppose my comment was based on your opening paragraph more than anything. The reality is that it is hard to (for example) do a degree in CS and not have a strong urge to organise and plan tasks. And in fact I do exactly the same thing in my current job, I do have to-do lists (although generally they are in my head except when something needs communicated to an underling). And shopping lists of course. But beyond that I have generally found myself getting lost when trying to plan anything else, or write down a list of tasks.
posted @ Sun Jan 04, 01:38:00 AMFor example my list of goals roughly sum up to marry some girl and bring up kids together in the north of scotland. There is no point in writing that down, or setting some finite length of time in which I want to achieve that, or trying to subdivide this into smaller tasks ( want to live in the north so need to move there, to move there need a job and somewhere to live, to get somewhere to live need x amount of money, to get x amount of money save y amount from pay). If it's that important to you then you shouldn't have to write it down to remind you, and if it's not that important then you either do it or you don't and it doesn't matter.
All that said, in some ways I could quite clearly be defined as a bum and you are (seemingly) on a completely different path from the one which i'm on. If you have a lot of things and want them done in a (relatively) short period of time, then list.
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