Monday, November 03, 2008

GOAL!

In my attempts to be a more goal-oriented, forward thinking, and proactive person, I've adopted a new system for getting through my day--a system I like to call "little chunks" (which, now that I think about it, sounds kind of gross).

My problem, usually, is that I cannot manage to get things done because I feel that the enormity of the tasks I set for myself render any steps I might be able to take negligible unless the entire thing gets done (clean apartment from top to bottom, including scrubbing baseboards with a toothbrush! read all my reading for a whole week in one day! organize all my clothes, hem three pairs of pants, and fold all t-shirts in a perfect square in an hour!).

Breaking up daily to-do lists into more manageable pieces is a time-saving task, a.k.a. life hack, that has been promulgated on the net and in various self-help books numerous times. I've tried it before. However, even when I did break up my day, I still found myself lingering over the first few tasks and eventually finding myself at dusk with a dishwasher half-loaded and a sofa covered in unfolded laundry.

Therefore, I have now found some success with breaking up the breaking up. By setting ridiculously doable standards, I find myself surpassing them: "Put away that dish" becomes "Well, I'm already putting away this dish...I might as well put away that mug, and that spoon, and that plate, and hey, let's put away all the dishes." Maybe I should call this "little little chunks"?

At any rate, it's working, and that's all that matters. So today's goals: read 4 pages of evidence. Throw away the old circular sitting on my coffee table. Put away my boots. Let's see how far these three things get me.

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