Things To Do

Summary – The Trap of Things-To-Do

Do you consider yourself as an organized person? Or at least a person who is attempting to organize his/her life? If you do, there is one trap we may have fallen into. The trap of Things-To-Do.

Things to do is not something new when it comes to getting things done or organizing. In fact, it is one of the basis of the concept. If you want to get things done, you need to come up with a to-do list.

But what will happen when you see everythings in life as a things-to-do? What if all you are doing through out your day is a task? Some examples are like when you even view your family time as a task. And you will stop spending time with them after an hour to focus on other things.

Or you allocate specific time to call your parents to say hi (Maybe every Saturday 12pm). And you find it disturbing if the parent call you when it is still not the time. Deep down you are blaming them for messing your schedule

I know, you may wonder, do such people exist? The truth is, they do. Not in such extreme cases though.

How do you know you are one of them?
Simple.. it is when you never satisfy with your life. Or you suffer the same frustration of not finishing your work even after your working hour. Or you are feel tired most of the time for no apparent reason. If these describe you, I’m sorry to inform you that you have fallen into the trap. Everything you do is work for you.

How do you get out of the trap
1) Determine whether you’re already trapped or not
This is a routine step 1. In order to solve a problem, we must know that we have a problem.

2) Add 25% free time in your schedule
When we have 18 hours everyday (assuming we sleep 6 hours), Free up 4.5 hours for us to do anything we want. It may be anything as long as it’s not work.

3) Be flexible
By flexible, it means that the previous 4.5 hours may not necessary be 4.5 hours every day. If you want, take a day off for yourself sometimes. Get in bed with a thick book to read.

However, being flexible itself is quite dangerous. You must know how flexible to be. Things will backfire if you are too flexible with your time, up to the point that nothing is being done. The keyword is always “finding balance”

4) Do something spontaneous
Take a road trip to a place 2 hours drive from your house. Spend sometimes there, snap some pictures and return home. The whole point is to mess your schedule once a month. This way, your mind will be trained to accept the idea of not completing work gradually.

5) Mingle with people
Another unmentioned sign of people trapped in the things-to-do trap is when they prefer to be alone rather than with friends / family. This way they think they can finish up more work. Take some time to hang out with friends. Go for a drink with them. Your mind need this more than you do.

6) Take up bigger project
Imagine a college proffesor. Proffesors are supposed to be one of the most brilliant mind on earth and we expect them to come up with better ideas or solve problems. Now imagine they’re living their life solely to teach students. No research done. Just plain teaching day in day out. Don’t you think that will be a waste of brilliant minds?

They still need to teach the students, nobody else can do that. But who will solve our global problems like global warming etc if not them?

Take up project for you to do. Maybe try to be more active in your support to your political party etc. Bigger thing for you to spend time on.

7) Revise all this
This is however the most important steps. As you can probably see, all the 6 suggestion in the list will help our mind to not view life as one big to-do-list. That’s really the whole idea.

However, in reality we still need to get things done for us to accomplish more in life. So revise all the list and check whether or not you are still able to finish up your important things-to-do. Try to find the balance between the two.

If you manage to do just that, trust me on this. You will live a happier life, with less stress and frustration from not finishing work,

/end list

– I wonder –
Anybody find this familiar?

——- Personal Note ——–
The mrs is now in her 38th week of pregnancy. If for some reason you see the blog without update for some time, most probably she is delivering the baby, and I’m there with her. Please be patient then kay?

Excited, Scared, Smiling, Worried – All these emotion in one time, no wonder most parent is suffering hypertension 🙂

Photo Credit – merfam

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This post has 3 comments.


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  1. 08 May 08 8:57 am

    fortunately, am not organized person…hehe

  2. 08 May 08 9:53 am

    something intrsting….

    dah 38 minggu…. moga selamat semuanya!

  3. banji
    08 May 08 12:13 pm

    amirahsyuhada – 🙂 as long as you get things done (GTD), you are organized.

    kuina – amiin.. terima kasih atas doa tu

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