How do you pick? Choose the task that most excites you, that feels compelling, that you?re most passionate about.
If you?re dreading the task, put it aside for now, and pick something more interesting.
If you have several tasks you?re excited about, you might also consider which task will have the biggest effect on your life. What will make the biggest impact?
3. Single-task
Now that you?ve chosen one task, put the others aside for now and just focus on that one task.
Clear away all distractions, including your mobile device and the Internet. Just have the application open that you need to work on that task.
Now get to work. Throw yourself into it, and do it for at least 10 minutes.
After that, you can take a break, but try to immerse yourself for at least 10
minutes.
And have fun doing it.
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6: letting go of goals
?By letting it go it all gets done. The world is won by those who let it go. But when you try and try. The world is beyond the winning.?
? Lao Tzu
One of the unshakable tenets of success and productivity literature is that you need to have goals in order to be successful.
And from this tenet comes all sorts of other beliefs:
» You need to set goals the right way (such as the SMART method).
» You need to break goals down into actionable tasks.
» You need to have deadlines and timeframes.
» You need to make goals the focus of your day.
I know this, because I?ve believed it and lived it and written about it, for a long time.
Until recently.
Until recently, I?d always set goals for myself ? short-term and long-term ones, with action lists. I?ve made progress on each one, and accomplished a lot of goals. And from this traditional viewpoint, I?ve been successful. So no argument there: goals work, and you can be successful using goals.
But are they the only way?
More recently I?ve moved away from goals, broken free of the shackles of goals. I?ve liberated myself because goals are not ideal, in my way of thinking:
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» They are artificial ? you aren?t working because you love it, you?re working because you?ve set goals.
» They?re constraining ? what if you want to work on something not in line with your goals? Shouldn?t we have that freedom?
» They put pressure on us to achieve, to get certain things done.
Pressure is stressful, and not always in a good way.
» When we fail (and we always do), it?s discouraging.
» We?re always thinking about the future (goals) instead of the present.
I prefer to live in the present.
But most of all, here?s the thing with goals: you?re never satisfied. Goals are a way of saying, ?When I?ve accomplished this goal (or all these goals), I will be happy then. I?m not happy now, because I haven?t achieved my goals.?
This is never said out loud, but it?s what goals really mean. The problem is, when we achieve the goals, we don?t achieve happiness. We set new goals, strive for something new.
And while many people will say that striving for something new is a good thing, that we should always be striving, unfortunately it means we?re never satisfied. We never find contentment. I think that?s unfortunate ? we should learn how to be content now, with what we have. It?s what minimalism is all about, really.
And if my philosophy is to be happy now, with enough, with the present, then how are goals consistent with this? It?s something I?ve tried to reconcile over the last few years, with some success.
So if we are content now, and we abandon goals, does that mean we do nothing? Sit around or sleep all day?
