Had a thought talking to someone yesterday…
This woman was talking about drama in her life/business — emergencies, problems, an endless string of fires that need to be put out…
She was aware of it, she didn’t like it, and she didn’t seem to know what to do about it.
And in a flash, it occurred to me that a modified version of the 80/20 rule (80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes) can be applied to the amount of drama you experience in your life.
Here’s how…
We all have stuff to do, right?
Well, a lot of drama seems to be borne out of unfinished business. Loose ends… Things completed 80% of the way before moving on to the next thing.
When you do something 80% of the way, of course, that leaves 20% unfinished.
And when you have lots of stuff 20% unfinished, not only is that going to occupy a lot of mind space, in some cases that unfinished 20% can come back to bite you in the ass (like paying your taxes, for example).
It’s understandable why you move off a given task before finishing it completely. Again, we all have lots of stuff to do…
But there is no version of a very cool life that incorporates drama over an extended period of time.
Do complete work.
Tie up loose ends.
Do less, but do whatever you’re doing completely, whether that’s emptying the dishwasher or writing a book.
And see what you notice in terms of your level of ease in your daily life.
Drew – this is great. And great timing. I just committed to a new time management process, Getting Things Done, and I sink into it, I’ve realized that things take longer than I thought if I truly complete the tasks. And that if I want to get things done, I do need to scale back on what I commit to. Cheers, Christina
A big “what if…?” for you…
What if you didn’t commit to much of anything?
As in, the stuff you really want to do doesn’t require committing.
So what’s up with the other stuff? Is it *really* necessary?
thanks for the thought and maybe I’ll noodle on this some more in a future post…
Oh, I laughed out loud with this one (out of self-awareness). The stuff I really wanna do definitely doesn’t require committing. That was the missing piece for me. Thanks!