T I M E M A N A G E M E N T
which your supervisor will walk in and ask what you’re doing
can be determined to within five minutes.9. Schedule Long-range personal Goals
You know you should do some serious financial planning. You
know you should have a current will. You know you should create
a systematic plan for home maintenance and repair.
If you know all that and never seem to get to it—put it on the
schedule. And, again, if you schedule these goals in manageable
steps, you’ll be much more likely to actually do them.
10. Be ready to abandon the List
“If you only write the story that is planned,” writer and teacher Ellen
Hunnicutt tells her students, “you miss the story that is revealed.”
The same goes for the story of your life. The most important
thing you do all day, all year, or even all lifetime, may never appear
on any to-do list or show up on the day planner. Never get so well
organized and so scheduled that you stop being alert to life’s pos-
sibilities—the chance encounter, the sudden inspiration.
Not all surprises are bad surprises. It just seems that way
sometimes.
For a delightful depiction of the dangers of developing list
addiction (which surely must have its own twelve-step programs
and support groups by now), read “A List,” one of Arthur Loebel’s
delightful Frog and Toad stories for children.
“I have many things to do,” Toad realizes one morning. “I will
write them all down on a list so that I can remember them.”He writes down “wake up” and, realizing that he’s already done
that, crosses it off—a great momentum-builder.