This week the unstoppable course has left a mark of reflection yet again… Only in a very unexpected way…

Ever feel that your system of staying organized was good and that you were on top of your to-do list? I did. I thought I had a pretty good system and that I was very responsive to the things that I had to get done. Rarely would I let something fall through the cracks and quite often I would be thanked by colleagues and family members for getting things done and in a relatively timely manner. I really thought I had a decent system.

I thought wrong…

Through the last couple of weeks I have been challenged to write out my goals, my to-do items and basically do a brain dump of everything going on in my head. Ever do this? If not, try it… It is very liberating. When I did what I found is that I was barely scratching the surface with the lists and inboxes that I kept in trying to stay on task. What I also realized is that I was very NOT in control of my task lists.

Let’s start with a picture of my old system.

My old system had multiple pieces that would float in and out as time allotted and as my mind remembered to use them. The key medium were my email inboxes, a to-do list application on my mobile device and written to-dos I would put on either post-it notes or a whiteboard. Quite often the email inboxes would take precedence followed by the phone and then paper. Occasionally if I knew something was super important I would use the post-it first. With this system I thought I had control because I knew all the places to look for items to do. I knew to look in my email, then this email and my app and then paper. I thought I had control. WHOOPS!

In just a nice of sitting down in front of Nozbe, an application I am asked to test run as part of Unstoppable I realized how bad I had become. My lists covered upwards of 20 some projects and over 66 tasks I wrote down. As I started breaking things into projects I started adding smaller more focused tasks. I have not come near completion of my lists but what I can tell you is that I owe some people a world of apologies. I was putting things off and not focusing on projects that mattered to me because I thought they took too much effort and the tasks were too big. I felt I didn’t have time to work on this or that because well, to get that done I had to do 5 things. Well sure, but what if I did item 1 now, 2 in a day or two and 3 and 4 over the weekend.

Once I started writing out the tasks I had to do I lost my sense of control with my old system. I don’t know that I feel control yet with this this new system but I can tell you that I know I need to get control and once I do I think that I can get even more done. The challenge is getting out of my head and into something I can see. One place to rule them all and to see a complete list of tasks and items. I don’t know if Nozbe will be my answer but I will definitely be finding out now that I see the multiple approach really had me out of control and at the mercy of the lists.