Productivity: When In Doubt, Hit RESET

“So how was YOUR day? Did you get much done?”

“Well, I guess. I started off OK but then I got sidetracked for a couple of hours. Then So and So came over and we talked for awhile. By the time they left the day was pretty much shot anyway, so I just set my To-Do list aside and decided to mess with it tomorrow.”

I don’t know about you, but this kind of thing used to happen to me all the time. I would start the day off with a positive mindset and a list of things that I was GOING to accomplish, but then I would get sidetracked or start to procrastinate and eventually throw in the towel. The idea was that my momentum was gone so I wouldn’t be able to get much done with the time left in the day and I’d be better off starting fresh in the morning.

Sounds reasonable, right? WRONG!!! This is a terrible way of doing things if you are REALLY trying to get things done. By going this rout you are giving into your lazy side and letting it win. You might think that you are not giving in by intending to continue your tasks the following morning, but your lazy side knows that tomorrow is a new day for IT as well. You will be just as tempted to repeat these unproductive habits as you were the day before. And not only this, but you will be throwing away the precious time that is still left in that day.

How to recover from this.

It’s quite simple actually. Just hit RESET! When your computer gets bogged down, resetting it is the best way to refresh its performance. Here is what I do when I have procrastinated half the day away and still want to get things done.

• Go into a quiet room (turn the lights off if it helps), close your eyes and clear your head. Focus on your breathing and just relax. This is your actual reset button. You are recreating the experience of getting up first thing in the morning.

• After a short time of doing this (how ever long it takes to reboot) go strait to the place you normally plan for your day (office, dinner table, etc…) Get out a piece of paper and re-create your To-Do list. Be sure not to use the old one. The idea is to restart, and using the old list will just remind you of what you DIDN’T get done. Write out the new list as if it’s the first time you’ve seen the tasks. Assuming that a chunk of your day is already gone, make sure to create the list according to the time left. There’s no advantage to running around like a crazy person as you try to do a full day’s tasks in half the time. The point here is to try to recover what’s left of the day.

• Once you’ve re-created your list it is important that you think positively. Remind yourself that you would normally have been on the couch watching TV, but are instead taking responsibility and ‘Getting Things Done’. Be excited that you are actually pulling yourself out of the rut of procrastination that you would have normally laid in for the rest of the day. Then use this positive energy to start knocking out the things on the list.

• At the end of the day be sure to make note of the things you accomplished. Point out to yourself the fact that these are things that would have otherwise been put off until tomorrow and that, even then, they might not have gotten done.

• Finally, write out a new To-Do list for the following day. Not only will THIS now be accomplished, but you can then see all the things that would not have been accomplished had you continued to procrastinate and pushed your responsibilities onto tomorrow.

There are three reasons why this ability to RESET is SO important.

1: How ever you react to certain situations you are training yourself to be a certain way. If you give in once, then it will be easier to give in the next time. And it just goes down hill from there. Anyone can keep up a strong momentum, but what we are doing here is much harder and a much more crucial skill. We are going from a dead stop to positive momentum in the same day.

2: How you end your day has a great affect on how you start the next one. So if you had thrown in the towel you would not only be less productive on THAT day, but you wouldn’t be giving the following day any momentum to work with.

3: One of the goals I have when I make my To-Do list is to accomplish some of the things that will help me get closer to my life goals and dreams. Every day that I REALLY push through my lazy side and ‘Get Things Done’ is one day closer to reaching those goals. So it is that much more important that when I have a rough start, I am still able to finish strong. There is nothing more un-motivating to the pursuit of your dreams than to be no closer to them from one day to the next.