What you do repeatedly becomes a habit. You want to build the habit of success by making sure your daily behaviors end with a success.
One "success" that I'm working on is always completing the tasks on my daily todo list. I've gone through many, many cycles on my todo lists. I used to start with a short list and then think of other things I could add, and then I would add some more. Of course, some of the items didn't get done, so I would carry them over until tomorrow, which made the next day's list longer.
Usually after a week of this, the todo list would get too daunting and I would stop looking at it. This meant that what I had been doing, eventually, was practicing failure.
What I'm doing now is limiting the list. I'm writing up my list the night before, and only adding items I'm certain that I can complete. In this way, every day, I check off the items on my list, and I build the habit of success.
I can do other things, of course, but by making a short list the focus, I get the important tasks completed, and I build the habit of getting things done. And as I go, I learn what I can pack into a single day and I can slowly add more items.
Don't let your todo list grow out of control. Prune it, and manage it, and above all build the habit of finishing it every day.
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
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1 comment:
You posted this entry on June 11 (Happy Birthday to me!). I would be interested to know how the events of June 12 changed your life!
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