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There are three less common reasons for not getting tasks completed. They are: willpower; won’t power; and want to want to.
Willpower
Did you know that willpower is like a muscle? The more you exercise it, the stronger it gets. Similarly, the less you work it, the more it atrophies. Without constant attention, you can end up with zero willpower at all. Lack of willpower is often accompanied by some of the biggest excuses. You can easily recognize people who have none by listening to their “reasons.” (Yes, it’s in air quotes deliberately!) They will tell you they are exhausted after working a full day. (Nobody else works that hard and still gets stuff done!) They are injured, or they’ve been sick, or their spouse/kids/dog doesn’t help. (Please note: being injured or sick are valid reasons for not doing stuff. Unless you have cancer or something, you DO have good days where you could get to some of your tasks.) Yes, some of your excuses are valid some days, but for the most part you are not exercising any willpower.To resolve this, you need to start small. You can’t go to the gym and start pumping 500lb dumbbells – you have to give yourself time to build up to the big leagues. When I say small, I mean really small. “I will wipe the counters every night for a month!” Yes – a month. It will take that long for you to actually achieve this, because there will be many nights when you don’t do it. After a month, you can up the ante to “I will wash dishes and wipe the counters every night for a month.” And so on. You can do it – you just have to want to.
Won’t power.
There are some tasks that you don’t want to do. Sometimes these are Sisyphean tasks that burn you out. Like making the bed or washing dishes. Clearing emails or tidying up the stock room. No matter how many times you do it, you still have to do it again. Sometimes these are tasks that you resent, because somebody else should be doing it, but it’s dumped on you. Sometimes they are things that you know you’re going to be in trouble for. E.g. you know you’re going to get a huge tax penalty for not doing your taxes on time, and your spouse is going to be mad at you. So you don’t do your taxes because you don’t want to deal with the fallout.These are tasks you just won’t do. You either ignore them until they explode hot air and spit over everyone. Or you hide them, or shuffle them around. They hang over you and cloud your day and your thoughts, and haunt your dreams at night.
These tasks are often combined with the other more common reasons. You don’t do them because you don’t have the tools, the time, the knowledge. Or, as mentioned, you’re afraid. These are also some of the hardest tasks to identify, as they’re the most camouflaged with excuses!
So what can you do? Well, the first step is to identify them. The next step is to figure out why. Why are they STILL on your list? And the last step is to figure out what to do with them. Eat the frog and get it over with? Cross them off the list, let’s be honest, you’ll never do them? Seek professional help/go to your boss to discuss/quit and get a new job?
Want to Want to
The final category is the one where you don’t actually want to do the item on your list. These are the items where society/norms/parents/management/environment say that something is normal, or desired. For example, it’s good to go for a walk every day. It’s healthy, it promotes cardiovascular fitness, it clears the mind. So you put Walk Every Day on your TDL. But you HATE walking! So you don’t actually WANT to walk every day. You “want to” want to walk every day. Geddit?To deal with these issues you have two options:
1.) find an alternative. If you don’t like walking, can you dance? Play pickleball. Do some hula hooping? In the Lose It! diet app, there is a huge section with exercise options you can log. It includes things like housework, gardening, and even sex. If you don’t like the “normal” mode of a to-do item, figure out what you wanted to get out of it, and find an alternative that fits.Or (2.) delete it. If the only reason something is on your list is to fit in with other-dictated outcomes, perhaps you shouldn’t have it on your list at all?
Final recap: there is a huge amount of stuff from your brain dump. This week you have to go through all of it and decide:
– why it’s there;
– what you have to do or need to get to be able to do it; and
– how you’re going to make it happen this year when you didn’t do it last year.Next week is the first day of the first week of the first month of the perfect year. And it’s a Sunday. I will post your Challenge for the year, and we will begin.
Good morning, everyone! Did you all have a fantastic Christmas? Were you all spoiled rotten? Have you all put on several extra pounds, so today you’re wearing your stretchy pants? For me, yes to all the above! LOL
Apologies for not posting yesterday. I meant to, I did! But… Christmas, you know!
Okay, so did you all empty your minds onto paper/digital? Everything is out there? This week’s homework then! This week is all about reflection and planning. Yep, we’re going to plan to plan! I want you to go over all your mental purge and consider the items listed. WHY haven’t you done it yet?
The most common reasons for not clearing items off our TDL are: time, tools, or terror.
Time:
Did anyone hear the COVID joke “2019: the reason I haven’t done stuff is because I don’t have enough time. 2021: nope, that isn’t it!”Yes, we are all busy and it can be inconceivable to find time to fit stuff in. Yet I promise you, a little (honest) introspection will reveal how much time you waste. Finding extra minutes in your day is possible; it’s making them work that is the problem!
The biggest issue with time is more “timetable” than actually finding time, though. If you do find a few minutes free, you’d rather “Netflix and wine”, than “elbow grease and shine”, amiright? For 2023, I want you to consider your agendas, your schedule, and your commitments. “No” is a complete sentence; could be you need to use it a little more often. Can you actually cross things off your schedule? Delegate or negate? Can you shuffle things around so that you do ‘like’ items together? Gym run and shopping run back to back, for example (they’re both exercise, kinda!) Facebook time and check email time while you’re online, then turn both off and focus on your TDL. Can you set a timer to reduce stuff that wastes time (Facebook, Insta, TikTok)? Or to create a deadline – set a timer for 20 minutes and work like mad to get as much done in those 20 minutes as you can?
Tools:
The biggest lesson I learned from quilting is that the correct tools can make you faster AND better! If you need the tools, buy the danged tools! This is NOT blanket permission to go buy that fad trending item you’ve been shipping! But if you know you will be more productive with a new device that you need, go find a good deal and get a new one. Yes, it’s an outlay of cash, but if you save 20 minutes a day by not fussing with the old (insert item), that’s nearly 2 hours a week! Have you ever considered whether your tools and supplies are slowing you down? Watch yourself as you work this week with this in mind.Terror:
Fear has the biggest hidden impact on our lives. This past week, I learned of a lady who was de-cluttering and found an old notebook with her To Do Lists of 2017. A lot of those items were still on her TDL of 2022! How many of the items on your TDL are things that you need to tackle, but you’re nervous? They’re very big tasks, and you’re overwhelmed by the sheer scale of them? They have specialized tools or knowledge requirements and you’re daunted? They have painful/special/heartrending memories associated with them, and you’re afraid to even go there?Which of the items on your huge mind dump fall into any of these 3 categories? What can you do/implement/change so that this year you CAN actually do them? Do you need to change your schedule? Buy new tools? Or get over some fear (real or fancied, it’s all real in your mind) or develop some new skills? Don’t worry, you don’t have to do any of these yet, your homework is to think about them this week. If you haven’t done these things in the past, what is going to be different about 2023 that will allow you to do them? The goal here is to hit the ground running, already braced for what you’re going to achieve!
Check back tomorrow for Part 2 of this week’s homework!
While JB gets an Honorable Mention (two weeks left and you’re back in the running!) for her terrific numbers, VT gets the win this week. Congrats on great numbers during the Silly Season!
I’m glad you all like my ideas. I admit to being stumped at first, it’s hard to come up with new stuff that is actually worth the effort, but I feel good about what I have planned.
You’ve all gone for lists, which is great if that works for you. It overwhelms me. I like to see pictures, so I’m a mind mapper! However, with the sheer volume of stuff I have downloaded from my brain, I’ve ended up with lists in my preliminary outline. I will rework these to be more “mappy” when I’m working on next week’s homework.
I began by creating a giant mind map of everything. Then, on a separate page for each category, I listed absolutely everything I could think of. Obviously, I began by creating my first category on the main page, then listing stuff under that category. If something else popped into my head, I would just add the main page category and then create a new list. This way I can keep adding if anything else occurs to me.
All the pages are stored in a folder for easy access.
Over the next two weeks, I’ll just keep jotting stuff down as it comes up. Well…. I’ll probably just keep adding over the next twelve months! 😀
Try to make your lists/maps/spreadsheets/whatever-you-end-up-with as comprehensive as possible. You are going to start the year with a clean slate, so you need to empty your mind of absolutely every teeny weeny
polka dot.. er… item, no matter whether or not it is related to eBay or inconsequential or embarrassing. You don’t have to share everything here. You don’t have to share anything, but sharing a few items helps you to feel accountable. You get to choose what you want to share. So just blurp* it all out into your recipient media of choice, and wipe your brain clean of having to worry or remember anything. Next Sunday we’ll take the next step.*super professional words here! 😉
When it’s time to start a new diet/exercise plan/declutter program/listing goal, you know how you think “I’ll start at the beginning of the week!” but then Monday comes and you should have used Sunday for planning so that you knew what to do on Monday?
You know how you think “well, I’ll start in the new month.” But then the first day of the new month falls in the middle of the week?
You know how you think “okay, it’s nearly the end of the year, I’ll start in the New Year.” But then the New Year arrives and your resolutions don’t survive?
You know how they add numbers? Like 2023. 2+0+2+3 = 7. In numerology, the number seven is the number for perfection!
What does this all mean for you?
The first day of the first week of the first month of the perfect year – is a Sunday!
You’re going to have a Superb Sunday Start in two weeks!
And a new challenge!
Start thinking about it now. Look around you. What do you need to get done? Anything, from the smallest item (pick up that candy cane wrapper that is under the chair) (why can’t these kids pick up after themselves!) to the ginormous oh-my-goodness-I-need-help items (build a cabin for my storage.) Just list everything you need to do, everything you want to do. Literally brain dump everything you have pending, or plan to have pending, or wish to have pending.
Do it any way that works for you. Categorize it, if you like: family, fun, friends, finances, fitness, faith, home, health, hobby. If you’re into mind maps, create one. If you prefer lists, list away. If you like spreadsheets, spread ’em, baby! Make it work. As long as you do your homework this week.
Homework: brain dump EVERYTHING you have on your mind to do next year. I mean everything! It must be in writing, whether by pen, paintbrush, sharpie, or digital. I don’t care if you tape a giant piece of blank newsprint to the door and write your list on that. Just purge your mind! Report back during this week on how you’re doing. Discuss, confer.
Next step next Sunday.
Congrats to Christine on winning the week! Great numbers.
Final stretch, folks! Then you can take a short break, before you start listing winter coats and jumpers etc. We’re about to move into the coldest part of the year – Jan/Feb/Mar.
Wishing you all a fantastic week!
P.S. Forgot to tell you that I have added a new column to the end of the spreadsheet. It is an “average listing” column that shows what your average listing has been per week for the year to date. It auto-updates as I add each week, so it’s accurate for each week’s numbers. This should help you set your goals for next year.
Unless you have absolutely had an extraordinary year of upheavals, your new goals should only be a small improvement on this year’s average. If you couldn’t list more than your average this year, what massive changes are you implementing to list more next year? Small steps, folks, create big wins. The secret is to keep on keeping on. You can scroll back through the year and see your listings over time. Where were your highs? Your lows? Think about what was going on in your life during those periods? How can you extend the highs and reduce the lows? If you can consistently list, say, 5 per week, by the end of the year you’ve listed 260 items. The word “consistently” is your catch – what happened during the weeks you listed zero? What do you need to change to allow you to list in those periods next year? Or, if you cannot change, can you factor in an extra listing per week to cover the weeks you can’t list?
You have about three weeks to work over your listing history and make some plans. All of our previous years are in the spreadsheet, look at the tabs at the bottom, so you have full access to all your listings over time.
In the new year, I’ll be asking for your new goal number.
Wow, a new record here folks. The first time we have a winner because they were the only one to list anything!
Sharyn, congrats on your win. It may not feel like much, but YOU LISTED! So you won. Go you!
Due to the epic failure of the Challenges this year, I seriously considered cancelling the monthly challenges entirely. However, after giving it some thought, I have a new Challenge in the works. As usual, I will release it a week or so before the new year to give you time to prepare.
I’d love to do a pole routine but I can’t even wear stilettos any more, let alone count a pole! Lol
New month: new challenge. Only one number left!
I’m gonna be honest up front. There’s no way I’m getting to any challenges this month. I’m swamped!
Wow, JB, that’s a big dog! Nice of you to dog sit. My dogs would not put up with “interlopers” so I don’t have that option.
Honorable mention to VL for an excellent listing number, but this week’s win goes to Sharyn.
Are we taking it in turns? I hope not! Sorry to hear that it’s your turn to be sick, VT, and I hope you feel fantastic again soon!
Yay, VL. Glad you enjoyed the video. We had fun, but I’m probably going to give it a rest for a couple years now. It was fun to do, but I won’t mind missing out next year. I have enough to do with my normal dance classes. On that note… Funny story: I’ve been begged for years, years!, to do a Burlesque class. I finally capitulated and said we would do it in January, because we don’t strip naked in class. We wear a tight outfit with our “stripper clothes” on top, so that the moves can be right but there are no nekkid displays. The new catalog information was sent out and it went through all the different levels. To the top. The Head Honcho. She cancelled my class – they don’t hold with none of that stuff here! 😀
Wow, VL, that must be some sort of record! Sorry that you and Sharyn are sick this week. Sending you both best wishes for a mild case and quick healing.
Congrats on your win, VT!
Good morning, all.
Well done on the great numbers, JB. Good luck with your clean up.
Good for you, VT! I haven’t been in a gym for years, mostly because there isn’t one close to me. A 40+ mile round trip and two hours lost in a day just doesn’t cut it right now.
Sending best wishes that it’s a mild case, VL, and that you get over it quickly.
OMG! Sharyn, were you guys in the house when it fell? I’m guessing nobody was hurt, or you’d have mentioned. Wow, that’s horrible.
I don’t have anything horrible to report. I’ve just been insanely busy. Having completed the quilt show, a quilting class, and a bunch of other stuff, I now have to prep for a parade on Saturday night where the day temps are below 40’F. And it’s a night parade. I tried to suggest to the ladies that we sit this one out but they’re all gung ho. Madness!
Wishing you all a great week!
Honorable Mention to JB for an impressive listing total, and the win goes to Sharyn, aka Hopalong Cassidy. 😉 Seriously, though, sorry to hear that you’ve damaged yourself. May I recommend that you get an appointment with an orthopedic surgeon? My doctors told me I sprained my ankle after falling down a flight of stairs, but after I was still in agony 3 weeks later, I went to see an ortho who told me I had snapped all 3 ligaments in my foot – and it was now too late to do anything about it! It doesn’t show up on x-ray as it’s not bone. Sending you best wishes that it IS just a sprain and you’ll be back to full steam ahead soon. And you can put your leg up on a cushion while you online shop for your lamp supplies…. 😉
Wishing everyone a great week.
Well, Sharyn, you have a good excuse. With a huge hoard to deal with, you absolutely don’t want to do extra shopping. VT and VL both have the excuse of moving house, and everyone knows it takes about five years to deal with that mess! Me? Am I allowed to say I’ve just been too busy? 😛
My #10 was to clear another shelf. I can tell you right now it’s not going to happen. I’m swamped!
What do you all have and do you plan to do it?
