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How To Do Lists Hinder Your Productivity - Podcast Episode 10
We know the to-do list cycle all too well.
You have a hundred things rattling around in your brain, so you write out a massive list out on a piece of paper, and then jump into frenzied action.
But you feel like you're spinning your wheels, like you are working all the time, and still have so much to-do and can't get ahead of the to-do list that grows faster than you can manage.
The Problem with To-Do Lists
To-do lists tend to fragment your focus. Alone, they can never be the time-management strategy you need to organize your tasks within the context of your week. To-do lists encourage you to take action, but it is most often un-prioritized action, meaning you will never make progress on the things that actually matter most to you.
Quickstart Your Planning - Podcast Episode 9
You want to create a personalized time-management strategy and maximize your planner. But you're not sure where to start or how to keep making the space to figure it all out when you're still trying to juggle everything you already have on your to-do list.
If that sounds like you, then you're our people.
And you need the Quickstart Your Planning Guide.
About This Episode
If you listened to the first season of our podcast, you’ll remember our Four Rules of Planning. Those rules were a helpful start, but in the months after publishing those episodes we realized a couple of things...
First, we don’t like rules. We like planning strategies that are personalized to each individual, and rules can rarely accomplish that level of customization.
Second, we couldn’t easily remember the four rules… and we wrote them. We knew that wasn't going to work; we needed something easy to grasp that was memorable.
Recap of Podcast Season 1 Episodes
At the end of January, we spent several days together as a team batch recording episodes for the second season of our podcast, Make Space to Thrive. We're so, so excited about the content coming your way. It's encouraging and practical, and we believe it will help you continue to make intentional living an intuitive part of your life. Our first episode of season 2 will drop on March 2nd, 2022 and we can't wait!
Here is a quick recap of all our episodes from Season 1, which aired this past fall. The topics of these episodes are so foundational, and a great place to start!
Setting ROOTED Goals: Developed by Providence
Recap:
Last week, we talked about the secret sauce for making progress on your important goals— even when things change —by writing your goals down frequently, even daily, so you train your brain to care about your goal. This week, we're wrapping up the entire ROOTED goals system by talking about the most critical mindset you can have when setting and executing your goals.
Your goals must be Developed by Providence, the final step in the ROOTED goal setting system.
The Kingdom of God does not rise and fall by the successes and failures of our written goals. Knowing this gives us an incredible amount of liberty to simply follow the Lord's leading through the messy middle. Leading our lives with integrity and excellence is a deeply meaningful endeavor, and God loves to give us the grace to do that. Having a Christian growth-mindset allows us to set our goals with an "amen" posture towards God's unknown plans for the future, knowing that when we give our goals back to God, we can trust Him to develop them in the best of ways.
Setting ROOTED Goals: Etched into Your Memory
Last week, we talked about how to create a symbiotic relationship between your goals and your lifestyle so they mutually support each other over the long-haul. This week we're going to talk about the secret sauce for making progress on your important goals— even when things change. When you train your brain to care about your goals, your subconscious joins the team and starts looking for every reasonable opportunity for you to make progress.
We call this "etching" your goals into your memory, and it's step 5 in the ROOTED goals process.
Setting ROOTED Goals: Tailored to Your Lifestyle
Last week, we talked about how to make sure your goals are clear and actionable, so that you can make significant progress whenever you have the time. Today, we're going to talk about that time, about how to create a symbiotic relationship between your goals and your lifestyle so they mutually support each other over the long-haul.
Step 4 is all about how to Tailor Goals to Your Lifestyle.
Other goal setting systems might show you how to reverse-engineer your goal (what we talked about last week), but then they end there and wish you good luck. This system shows you how to look at your goal in the context of your daily life, and then make strategic shifts in your schedule in order to make space for this goal.
Setting ROOTED Goals: Outlined for Clarity
Last week, we discussed the importance of finding the overlap between your core calling goals, your starting point, and your deepest long-term priorities. It is in this intersection that we can find goals that are Organically Growing Out of Your Context—goals that make sense for you, where you are, today, and that act as a bridge to help you get to the next level.
This week, in step 3, we’ll be talking about how to Outline (“Reverse-Engineer”) Your Goal for Clarity.
Other goal setting systems will encourage you to outline your goal for clarity—and there’s a reason for this. Our brains crave step-by-step clarity. This phase is all about being specific about your goal and breaking it down into actionable steps.
Setting ROOTED Goals: Organically Growing Out of Your Context
Last week, we talked about how to start uncovering the soil of your core calling. Core calling goals resonate deeply, compel you to follow-through on them, and start bearing fruit immediately. The soil of your core calling forms a rich environment for setting sustainable, healthy goals that actually energize you.
Other goal setting systems tell you to close your eyes and imagine where you want to be in 5-10 years—to dream big!—then to reverse-engineer and hustle and grind to make that dream come true.
This system grounds you in reality by helping you figure out the logical next right step for your real life. It starts by embracing your starting point as valid, and then helping you figure out the next right step to take to move you closer to where you're trying to go.
Setting ROOTED Goals: Rooted in Your Core Calling
Other goal setting systems start by asking what you want for your life. This system starts by asking how you’re uniquely called as a disciple of Jesus to show up in the spaces of the world where He has placed you. What is your core calling?
I have to admit—as thrilling as the idea of a core calling is, it’s also pretty intimidating. But tapping into your core calling is an essential part of creating goals that fully resonate, that compel you to follow-through in the execution of them, and that produce a lot of satisfying fruit along the way.
So let’s begin uncovering your core calling—the soil for every sustainable and healthy goal you’ll ever set.
How ROOTED Goals Can Help You Thrive This Year
January 1st is only days away. With it will come a massive wave of social pressure to sit down, dream big, map out your future, and then relentlessly hustle and bend every aspect of your life to make those goals happen.
But we're not falling for that this year. We think there's a better way.
Unrealistic, untethered, shame-motivated goals are a cultural epidemic. We ourselves know all too well what it’s like to put pen to paper, get our adrenaline pumping, cross our fingers with the hopes that somehow it’ll be different this time—and then have unforeseen higher priorities come in and wash away all of our wishful thinking.
We’re done with goal setting systems that pump you up, introduce massive tension between your goal and your daily responsibilities, and then leave you feeling like a failure.
Why We're Taking This Week Off
If you've been following us for long, you know that we are passionate about encouraging and empowering women to craft lifestyles that fuel their most life-giving goals. Culture likes to tell us that we can either have a thriving business or be home-loving women, but not both. We simply don't buy this. We believe we can honor the business responsibilities we've been given, and also serve our families by being fully present, especially this Christmas week.
That's why this year we've decided to shut things down and take the next week off business activities so we don't have the pressure of being on our phones, pulling out our laptops, or cramming in work blocks into our holiday plans. Instead, we're going to cozy up with our families, slow down to soak in the goodness of the season, and fully celebrate the joy of the birth of Christ.
Cultivating Peace Amidst Holiday To-Do's
Christmas in ten. days. away. If you're feeling a crushing sense of overwhelm at everything left to do before now and then, take a deep breath. Grab something warm to drink, and cozy up for some words of encouragement and practical tips before you launch into frenzied action.
We could never outdo Isaiah 9:6-7 or Luke 1:46-55 in an attempt to explain how incredible the Incarnation has been to world history. It is fitting that a celebration of Christ’s birth is a day with so much focus every year. God with us. It’s a profound thought. A revolution. The Light entering the darkness of history and chasing away sin and death “far as the curse is found.” It’s phenomenal.
You want to stay focused on what matters most. But with a hundred things on the to-do list, it’s kind of difficult to transpose the message of “peace on earth” to “peace within.” Here are some tips you can utilize today to step out of your frazzled hurry and into stillness of spirit.