There are a slew of popular books and systems, from favorites of mine such as Getting Things Done
to the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
to the Now Habit
and more, all designed to get us more productive and effective.
But getting things done is really about one thing, and one thing only: overcoming the resistance to doing what we need to do.
Photo courtesy of Pikaluk
OK, I would add a couple more steps to that, to ensure that we’re managing our tasks correctly:
1. Have all our projects and tasks stored in an external system (out of our heads), such as a to-do list or lists.
2. Pick the tasks and projects that are most important to work on.
3. Overcome the resistance to actually doing those important tasks.
And I would submit it’s the last step that’s the most important
(although I wouldn’t ignore the other two). Unfortunately, because
we’re not very good at overcoming resistance, we procrastinate on this
third step by fiddling with the external system — the tools we use to
organize our tasks, coming up with new and better systems, tweaking
them until they’re near perfect, and so on.
That’s Resistance.
As Stephen Pressfield writes in his excellent book on this topic, The War of Art
:
“There’s a secret that real writers know that wannabe
writers don’t, and the secret is this: It’s not the writing part that’s
hard. What’s hard is sitting down to write.
What’s keeping us from sitting down is Resistance.”
The War of Art is all about Resistance, not only for writers and other artists, but
for anyone trying to pursue their dreams or become what they’re meant
to be. I highly recommend it. This, of course, is also a topic that is
central to Zen Habits: overcoming Resistance to create new and better
habits, to find happiness and simplicity, to do what you need to do and
love to do.
I fight Resistance every single day, and I thought you might be
interested in some of the ways I fight and beat Resistance, daily.
1. Become aware. The problem usually is that we
don’t think about Resistance. We don’t understand it or even realize
it’s there most of the time. We just think, “Oh, I better straighten
out my desk … or get my to-do lists in order” or we get distracted by
something on the web, or we feel that we have to check our email, or
we’re just going to watch this one TV show, or any of a limitless
amount of distractions.
Combat this by realizing that you are facing Resistance. Once you
become aware of it, you can fight it, and beat it. It can be difficult
to become more aware, but the key is to focus on it for a couple of
days. Print out the words “Defeat Resistance” and put it somewhere
visible as you work. That will help remind you to be aware of
Resistance. Every time you do something that isn’t the most important
thing you could be doing right now, be aware of what you’re doing.
2. Become a pro. This is the main technique that Pressfield outlines in The War of Art:
combating Resistance by turning pro. The professional, unlike the
amateur, comes to work ready to work. He’s doing it for a living (and
loves what he does) and knows that as long as he shows up and starts
working, the rest will come. Approach the work like a pro, and you’ll
get the work done.
3. Be very clear, and focus. Before you start the
day, be very clear about what you want to accomplish. You won’t be able
to finish 10 major projects, but maybe you can finish one important
project, or at least move it along to a certain point. Set three Most
Important Tasks you want to accomplish today. Once you have those
things defined, you’ve got to focus on them to the exclusion of all
else (at least, during your prime work time). Do them first. Focus,
finish, then move on to the smaller tasks you need to complete today.
If you find yourself being lured to do something that’s not on that
short list of three things, bring yourself back and focus.
4. Clear away distractions. Don’t spend a lot of
time on this, because eliminating distractions can be a distraction
itself. Instead, take one minute: close your email program and IM
program and turn off all notifications. Shut down the Internet if at
all possible. Close all programs except the one you need to do the
important task in front of you. Clear your desk quickly (stuff
everything in a drawer or something — you can organize it later) and
turn off the phones if possible. Put on headphones or alert your
coworkers (or family, if you’re at home) that you’re not to be
disturbed for the next hour (or however long you plan to work on this
task). Then get to work.
5. Have a set time and place. Make your first
important task a daily appointment. For me, that’s writing. I always
start the day with a writing task (such as writing this post, for
example). For you, that might be different. Have a set start time, and
possibly a set ending time — you’ll have to see what works for you, but
the important thing is the set starting time. And when that time comes,
you have to start. No exceptions.
6. Know your motivation. Why are you doing this?
Why is this task important? What is it working towards? And how
important is that end goal to you? Why is it important? You need to
know these things to build up the motivation to overcome Resistance.
7. Just start. In the end, all the
tips in the world won’t make as much a difference as this simple (and
timeless) instruction. Just sit down and start. Feel Resistance to
doing that? There’s no way to overcome it than to just start. Reading
more about Resistance won’t help. Going to an online Procrastinator’s Forum won’t help. Working on your to-do lists won’t help. Only doing actually
helps. And the only way to do something is to just start.
So how do you start, when you feel resistance? You just start.
Feeling the need to do something else? Stop yourself from getting
distracted. Remind yourself what you need to be doing, and why. Sit
down and the set time and place. And just start.
For me, that means opening up a blank text file and writing the
title of whatever I’m writing. Then I start brainstorming and outlining
ideas. This gets me over the initial Resistance. And once I’ve started
on that, I can usually get into the flow. But the important thing is to
get started.
So stop reading this. And just start!
Update: See another great article on this topic just published over at LifeDev.net: Keeping Focus While Beating Back Distractions.