Getting Things Done

One of the most common tortures that people go through every day is to see some longstanding tasks remain undone. That door has been creaking since Christmas last year when it could have taken just a few minutes to fix it. The plan to move that cabinet to the other side of the room only requires a few pushes, but it’s still there where it should no longer be.

Getting things done is a measure of one’s personal determination and selfdiscipline. Ideally, if it took some time and effort determining and deciding what needed to be done to better oneself and one’s life, then one must commit to do it.

If you still haven’t gotten around to doing the one major task you wanted to do since early this year, you still have time. Taking easy physical steps can help to lead yourself into that big job. It helps to do a “leading task,” something little and manageable to persuade you to do the bigger endeavor.

For example, if you want to finally write that oftenpostponed article about your field of expertise, writing some notes on the points to be covered is an important first step to start you up. If even this is hard to get by, try putting a paper pad and pen on your writing desk. No kidding! Well, there’s no assurance that the great idea will come at once. But at least there is a chance that, once you have the paper and pen ready, you will be prompted to write a few words of value to your project.

It has been found that a physical item associated with an elusive task can be a compelling factor to its eventual undertaking. To put that item where you cannot avoid seeing it is a good leading task.

You may have been planning to repair a broken down fence, but have also been overwhelmed by the thought of the amount of time and effort it takes to do it. So, you try to avoid it as much as you can. Now, try putting a hammer or saw around the breakfast table. This increases the chance that sooner or later you will pick up the tool and get to work on the fence.

When we think of a task to be quite formidable, we tend to seek other tasks as diversion. We are likely to overcrowd our desk with magazines, party invitations and our favorite DVDs when the responsibility of doing the office’s annual report is thrown on our lap. There’s no more working space for doing the report, so there’s our excuse! But this is nonsense, we know. The job doesn’t get done by our ignoring it. Our excuses won’t do unless, perhaps, we’re the manager’s child.

Leading ourselves into a difficult but important task requires clearance, mental and physical, from distractions that can divert our attention. It helps to keep a clean desk where the only things we can see are those that will compel us to do the important assignment. If you really want to read the Bible from cover to cover, get it out of your bookshelf. Put it where you’ll always see it; don’t bury it in the pile of the day’s papers.

The idea of a leading task is not really new. Our grandmothers had been applying it on us. Remember when we were small? Grandma had an effective way of getting us to take an early morning shower. She knew how small kids hate taking a cold morning bath, so she never asked us that. Her simple order was: “Just get yourself to the bathroom.” That did it – very well. We’d come out of the shower cold but fresh, and ready to plunge our quivering little bodies into the loving warmth of her waiting hug.

A leading task is like a little step that we take towards the big direction. Its rewards are immense. There would not be the high skyscrapers today, if someone did not pick up a pencil and began drafting designs. The creative effort required in resisting our natural inertia and procrastination is too little a price to pay for the great victory of being able to tame our own self-defeating tendencies.