Wednesday, August 25, 2010

A change in attitude

PROBLEM: I have a strange problem. I don't like taking orders/to-do-lists from myself.

I don't have a problem with being asked to do something by someone else. But when it is I, who asks myself to do something, I end up in a strange situation.

First, there is an instant aversion to doing that task. Then, I get caught up in trying to figure out if I really really 'need' to do that task..
"How much significance does that task really have, considering the miracle of life, cosmos etc".. "Ok, what will happen if I don't do it today...Ok,ok,ok, what will happen if I don't do it ever?" etc etc... and eventually I come to the conclusion that "the world will not end if I don't do it, so forget about it"..

I have previously tried to attack this problem by disguising the to-do-task as a 'duty'. But 'duty' is a big word, and most of our daily chores definitely do not qualify as our life's duties. So that strategy failed...

SOLUTION: Recently I came up with a new strategy that seems to be working somewhat - I tell myself - "I can do this and then that", instead of saying, "I should do this and then I have to really do that".......OR I 'ask' myself what I 'can' do instead of 'telling/ordering' myself what I 'should' be doing...

And this seemingly minor change has made a world of difference to me. Because this way, I no longer digress.... into a debate with myself, about a task's eligibility to qualify as my 'duty'...

And the underlying reason why this strategy might actually work for a lot of procrastinators is that this strategy addresses the real problem - there are only a few things we really care about, a 100% I mean.. And if any task is not related to those few things, then no one, including ourselves, can convince us to start caring about them...because at that point, we are talking about changing our personality, which is not easy for anyone..

One important thing I observed is that 'what I can do' is really a super-duper super-set of 'what I should be doing'.... Probably we should approach life itself with this attitude rather than constantly go over, what we feel, are our list of chores/duties, and feel burdened by them.

Hopefully, with this change in attitude, I can do some things right.

EXTENDING...Apart from our personal life, if we apply this to other areas -
A not-so-uncommon scenario is people being under-utilized in a company. Probably, employers/managers should give their employees, apart from their to-do-list, a can-do-list as well or allow the employees to come up with their own can-do-list. A work environment where employees are given a list of responsibilities and then restricted to those responsibilities, is not such a great environment to work in.

As employees, we should probably think about what we 'can' do instead of restricting ourselves to our assigned to-do-list. This is probably the main difference between people who move 'up' versus the rest.

(A relevant post by Seth Godin is - The problem with unlimited.
He suggests that specifying a 'max' limit is good sometimes. Currently a 'minimum' limit is what everyone is used to. For e.g. At work, I am expected, at the minimum, to finish a certain set of tasks this week. But no one has given me, the maximum set of tasks that I am allowed to finish this week... :) )

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