Is Your Daily To Do List Doing You In?

You have too many items on your list; you know you'll never get through them. What WILL happen is that you'll feel bad when at the end of the day when you assess your accomplishments. And every day you fall farther and farther behind. Daily new items show up but the old ones don't budge. You beat yourself up every time you look at that list and you look at it a lot.

It's time to dump the To Do list!

I know the thought of trying to get through a day without the list is frightening. "My world would fall apart," you say. The first step ~ dumping the To Do list ~ requires a leap of faith. I challenge clients to begin by trying this for just one week and assessing the results ~ both tangible and attitudinal.

A new client showed up for her first session in my office and pulled out her To Do list. It was one of the scariest things I had ever seen! It was a 2-page table with several columns filled in with red ink in very small print. I couldn't even look at it. Though I'm normally calm and assured, my confidence quaked when I saw that list. Her imposing To Do list almost did me in.

We jumped right in that first session with an issue about her adolescent son and his distractibility. He spends one week with my client and then one week with his dad, her ex. He wasn't getting his homework done and the consequences were mounting. She devised a simple strategy for helping him stay accountable. We then shifted the focus to her and began to develop a big vision for her life.

Well, by the next week, the homework problem had been resolved. Her simple strategy worked miracles. Happy mom. Happy kid. Happy teachers. Oh, and happy coach! And within a month, she had attracted some totally unexpected opportunities in her job that would move her towards her vision very quickly. We never looked at or talked about the To Do list again after that first few minutes in that first session. She did find it recently buried in her coaching notebook. She pulled it out and we both laughed about the hideous thing. Like most monsters, it lost its power to frighten and intimidate when we stopped feeding it energy.

What I really want you to do is trade in your defeatist system for a system that uplifts and empowers you. This is a simple 3-step system and you'll know if it's going to work for you in a few short weeks. Using this system you will:

1) Focus on Your Highest Vision

2) Act on Your Intuition

3) Celebrate Your Accomplishments

Step 1: Create a compelling vision and then keep the focus on that big, beautiful picture ~ the big panorama as well as the smaller daily snapshots. If you don't have a vision of your career or business how can you even know if the tasks you are doing are meaningful or taking you in the right direction? If you don't have a vision ~ get one fast. Or slow, but get one. Get help if you don't know to do it. I recommend Robert Fritz' books, especially The Path of Least Resistance.

Even if you are a visionary by nature, get support through this process and especially in creating a vision that is clear, specific and that you will recognize when you experience it. Learn to create mini-visions to guide your days. What do you want to experience every day? How do you want to feel? Pre-pave the road to those results. Just as champion athletes spend time envisioning every move in their "best game," your strong vision and intention will begin to form your daily experience.

Working with others in a Mastermind Group (see Napoleon Hill's Think and Grow Rich) or working with a coach can ease and accelerate the transition from being a harried, stressed and exhausted, *normal American* to being a relaxed, accomplished, peaceful presence at work and in your whole life.

Now you move to Step 2: Cultivate your intuition, your best guide through the daily maze of work and life. Some folks refer to intuition as hunches, gut reactions, and inklings. Intuition, but any other name, works just as well.

We've all had the experience of someone's name of face popping into our heads of then picking up the phone and calling them. They just happen to have mission critical information for us. Or they make an offhand remark that saves us a ton of time or money. Maybe they want to buy something from us. Or they say the perfect thing that we needed to hear that day, that moment.

We've all also had the experience of someone's name or face popping up, then taking one look at the deadly To Do list and grudgingly attacking the next task telling ourselves that we will call that person later. But later never happens.

I can hear you thinking, "Without my list, I'm lost!" It seems your list has become your life, but remember, you are so much more than your list. I'm not suggesting you flit through your day willy-nilly with no regard to scheduling or responsibilities.

I am suggesting letting your expanded senses guide you to the shortcuts, to the path of least resistance, to the opportunities that require a calm presence in order to even be noticed. (For a more in-depth article on Intuition visit my website www.naturalcoach.com.)

Step 3: Celebrate your accomplishments. Start with the creation of a Master List. Go get yourself a big, beautiful binder. This is the new home for all your important To Dos. Create sections that make sense for you and your business. Some possible tabs might be: To Dos, Brilliant Ideas, Resources to Collect, People to Cultivate, Books to Read.

You may be saying, "Wait a minute, how does this differ from the Daily To Do List?" Most importantly, you know there is no pressure or expectation to get everything on this list done today. Or tomorrow. Or even this week. You have freed yourself from the tyranny of time and its daily disappointments.

Prioritize the items on your Master To Do list with numbers, colors, stars ~ whatever works for you. Look at it no more than ONCE A DAY the first few days, then put it away. You will get to the point where you are looking at it only ONCE A WEEK or less.

Now you will create a new daily list called the DONE! List. At the end of the day you will list everything you accomplished that day, whether you planned it or not. Take credit for those unplanned activities and accomplishments that otherwise go unacknowledged. Begin to practice the habit of celebrating your successes ~ small, medium and large.

I like to include a section called What I Am Grateful For on the DONE! List. Operating on the theory that what I focus on grows, make sure to keep your focus on what is working in your life, in your career, in your business.

When you shift your focus from what's NOT getting done to what IS getting done, from what you DON'T have to what you DO have, you experience a powerful positive psychological shift. You begin to look forward to the activities of the day. You welcome the tasks at hand. You delight in finishing things because you know you'll be taking credit for them on your DONE! List.

This list can be a running tally or compiled at the end of the day. Occasionally you may wait until the beginning of the next day but don't wait any longer than that. I recommend setting aside the last 10 ~ 15 minutes of your workday for this practice so that you move into your evening on a positive note.

Oprah is a huge fan of Gratitude Lists. Whether you are a fan of Oprah's or not, no one can argue with her success ~ financially, as well as in making a difference in people's lives. Start making a difference in your own life, first, by following these simple 3 steps to creating an empowering system to support you every day. Then notice how that positive impact starts naturally expanding to those around you.

If you liked the coaching challenge this month, you're gonna love next month's:

Isn't It Time To Upgrade?

Valentine Gift to Yourself