‘What saves a man is to take a step. Then another step.’ ~C. S. Lewis
We get into exercise mode when the Doctor says you better do it or be gone forever
We put money into Tax-savings instrument today when the deadline for producing the Tax-proof is Tomorrow or a day-after
We start preparing for that Presentation that is due today for the meeting that is today…
So, the theme is all for us to see …as David Allen of Getting Things Done asks us “When do you do the things? …When they show-up or When they blow-up? “ . In an age where the keyword “Multi-Tasking” is becoming integral part of the Resume, we have mastered the art of doing things in the nick of time …fire fighting from one day to the next ... all these coming at the high cost of Stress & Whining.
So, you may ask what is the issue all about? Well ,we could still accomplish most of the things on the plate without being stressed out provided we can take the following actions.
Having an “Inbox” :
A placeholder where you collect all the Tasks/Projects that you want to complete. The key for choosing the right “Inbox” is accessibility, because you want to dump things into this Inbox as soon as you remember a thing to do. Human memory is Sublime yet fallible…so trust the Inbox rather than your brain ! I would recommend todoist or rememberthemilk, which are cloud based tool for storing the “Stuff” that you need to do.
Determining the Action step :
So now that you have captured what you got to do , you now need to determine what is the next physical action you need to take to accomplish the task. You would need to review your “Inbox” on a weekly basis ,if not daily, to determine what is that next immediate thing you need to do to take the task a step forward. If there is one magic bullet for stress free productivity it is this, it is this, it is this….
Let us try the above steps with an example where the “stuff” you want to accomplish is “Doing the Tax savings for 2013” . So this goes into the “Inbox” as soon as it can. And in the weekly review ,please ask yourself
“ Now what ?” … “Got to determine which savings instrument to invest ?“ …
“Don’t know , I need to call the Tax consultant”…
“Do I have the telephone number of the Tax consultant?”… No I do not
“Call my friend and get the telephone number of Consultant”
You see that the next physical action to the “Doing the Tax savings….” is to make a call to your friend . As soon as you call your friend and get the telephone number , you got to determine the next step & thereafter.
It is this thinking time to determine the next physical action, which is hardly a minute ,that we miss. So the key for doing things as they show-up, is for you to become self-aware of the Next Physical Action & keep on deciphering the next steps . And as you complete each of the physical actions, you will see that you are moving towards accomplishing the tasks without the associated stress.
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