76 brilliant stress management
Activities
Once you have your outcomes for tomorrow, the next thing to
do is to list all of the things you need to do in order to achieve
them. You may think that this just sounds like a ‘To Do’ list, but
it isn’t.
To Do lists
A To Do list is a long list of all of the things that you would like
to do. You can prioritise them, you can set deadlines against
them, and you can cross things off
them, but you can rarely nish them.
To Do lists have a habit of growing
as fast as we get things done. Just
restarting the list on a new sheet
of paper does not detract from the
essential nature of a To Do list: the better you are at using it, the
faster you will add things to it. Since there’s always more to do,
the diligent time manager will never stop work, and the strug-
gling time manager will rapidly feel overwhelmed. Either way, To
Do lists are a common cause of stress.
To Day lists
When you add activities against each outcome in your OATS
plan, you get a To Day list. Unlike its harmful cousin, it is a
closed list: you can complete it and, having done so, feel good
(something that will add to your life). Then, starting with your primary
goals, give each a timescale. Keep it simple, like one year, five years, 10
years or 20 years.
This work will form the basis from which you can start planning your time
and evaluating the value of the possible outcomes you could set in your
OATS planning.
To Do lists have a habit
of growing as fast as we
get things done
Control your time 77
about yourself and stop working. The other advantage is that
each activity is prequalied as important: it will help you achieve
an outcome you have decided that you want, and that outcome
will be linked to one of your goals.
Important or urgent?
President Eisenhower knew what it was to have a lot to do. He
is commonly credited with a helpful insight:
This insight has given rise to a very helpful time management
tool, the Urgent–Important quadrants, illustrated in Figure 4.1.
‘Most things which are urgent are not important, and
most things which are important are not urgent.’
Attributed to Dwight D. Eisenhower
© Mike Clayton,2011
Not Urgent
&
Important
Not Urgent
&
Not Important
Urgent
&
Not Important
Urgent
&
Important
Figure 4.1 Urgent versus important
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