Self Effectiveness: Write, write, write - Part 2

In my previous post, I had written about the importance of writing down everything (or most things) that you want to do in a single place and not on pieces of paper. As simple as this sounds, this forms the foundation for a unloading unnecessary information from your brain, so that your brain will not be bogged down and can focus on thinking and execution.

Again, I cannot repeat how simple this may sound, but how effective it is. If you do not believe it, try it for 4 weeks and drop me a comment to let me know if it works for you.

The next step is to ensure that the activities you have written down are time bound. Every activities must have a start date, end date, start time and end time. Yes, start and end time. Why?

1. If you do not have the start and end dates and times, it means that it will never get done. The activity is not important. If it is not important, why do it? Aren't you wasting your time?

2. Other methods may use classification of activity into A, B, C etc. So, if you have 20 class 'A' activities to do, 30 class 'B' and 50 class 'C' activities, you should start on the 'A' activities first. Good. But hang on! Which 'A' activity do you start with first? Maybe if you label it A1, A2, A3 classification. Then which activity in 'A1' do you do first? You see what I mean? If the activity is important and helps you to achieve your goal, it must have a start time and end time. These are all 'A' activities. Having scheduled a date and time, the activity WILL get done because when the allocated time comes, you will do the scheduled activities.

Simple? Sounds simple. But difficult to do. Again, this boils down to discipline and habit. The foundation is to write everything down in one place. Take the challenge. Write everything down for 4 weeks.

What about To-Do list? I personally do not advocate To-Do list. I have used it before with the classifications 'A', 'B', 'C' etc. It didn't work for me. You know what happens? You create your first shiny new To-do list. All proud and neatly written. As the days roll on, you find that you can complete the activities on the list on day 1. So it snowballs into day 2, PLUS day 2 activities are added and this goes on. After a week or so, the To-Do list becomes huge and unwieldly! What do you do? You throw the list away and start on a new one. Sounds familiar? This is one simple reason why many do not achieve their goals. They do not have a clear plan, but rather have temporary, transient lists, hoping to achieve. Hope is not a strategy.

In my next post, I will be sharing more techniques on self effectiveness, such as how do you put the written activities into a visual overview so that you have a map for the month, how to do follow-ups, review, plan, achieve self improvement, and all information should be written in one place, not on pieces of paper.

If you try out this method, do let me know if it works for you. It has certainly worked for me. I feel less stress than trying to remember the 101 things I need to do for the day, week and month and worry that I may forget something!

Till the next post...Happy writing
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Copyright Bernard Ong, 2006