Just because we’re “staying home” here in the San Francisco Bay area, doesn’t mean that everything has come to a complete stop. I thought it might be a good time to catch up on some of the things I’ve been putting off, so I decided to give myself the goal of accomplishing one thing each day. After all, it would make me feel good that I’d accomplished something that day, and it would put me ahead of the game when things got back to normal.
Sounds good. So on day one, my task was to “establish the guidelines for my plan.”
- Do one task a day.
- Write it down.
Done! Excellent! My plan has already produced successful results. I’m ready for day two.
- On day two, I had the grand and noble goal of “clean out bedroom closet.” As the day wore on, that goal kept getting downsized and eventually ended up as “put away the suitcases from my last trip.”
- On day three, “walk the dog across the pedestrian bridge for a nice, long romp in the park” quickly became “take the dog down the three flights of stairs to the courtyard so she can pee without feeling guilty.”
- Day four started out as “give the bathroom a really good scrubbing from top to bottom” but ended up as “clean the toilet.”
I soon figured out that the secret to success has everything to do with how I describe my daily goal…or task or whatever you want to call it. The more targeted and specific it is, the better. For example: today is day five and today’s task was on the tip of my tongue as “update website with new theme.” But before I even wrote it down, I proactively edited it to say, “change the home page on A&M’s website.”
Day five: Done! I think I’m really getting the hang of this!
How about you? What are you doing to make these “interesting times” more doable?
In the midst of it all, just remember that we’re trying to slow down the spread of the COVID-19 virus, so breathe and stay calm. Take care of yourself and your family. Look out for others, and find something to make you laugh every day. It really is the best medicine!
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