Lists.  I love lists.  I have always had lots of lists.  Lists for each ‘hat’ of my life.  I find lists in books left by my Mumbo and lists littering the surfaces of the kitchen at Dad’s.  They are part of my life.  I inherited the ‘list gene’.

 

Until today.

 

A couple of weeks ago, my new crush (aka Tony Robbins) was talking about lists.  He referred to them as reasons for us to see ourselves as failures every day for the things we didn’t do and worry and stress about all the things we still have left to do.  He suggested that rather than write lists, we focus on the outcome of what we want… by focussing on the outcomes, we will know what we need to do in terms of action and activity.  Thus making lists redundant.

 

Totally threw me in to a spin!  I couldn’t imagine myself without my lists, my safety nets, my security blankets.  I had to listen to it again and digest it for a while.

 

And yesterday while I was running, the topic of lists came up again on the audio I was listening to.  And the way she explained it, made it all so very simple.

 

You can keep adding to lists, as and when you think of things to do.  And think you are going to do it.  And you will, maybe eventually… or you will just do the important stuff, and leave the rest until it becomes important.

 

Or you can just think of something and rather than writing it down, you can just do it.  Think. Do. Done.

 

This is so powerful, especially in the things that you don’t want to do or fearful of doing.  A bit like Brian Tracy’s ‘eat the frog’.  Just get the important stuff, the scary stuff done first.  Just like Gary Keller’s ‘The One Thing’, keep drilling down so you just do the one thing that is going to make the biggest difference in your life or your purpose or the task at hand.    And do that.  No lists required.

 

So I have been applying this new theory.  What’s the point of learning stuff from the successful and then ignoring it?

 

I still plan my day – segments of my day carved out for the various different priorities, but in those moments, I think what is the most important thing I need to do.  And I just get to work.  The most important thing comes to mind.   When you work like this as my audio said “don’t let propaganda campaign of procrastination knock you off track”.

 

No lists to cross off.

 

No lists to look at to worry about how much left I have to do!

 

No noise in my head as I just think in the moment.

 

Loving it!  I was worried I would forget stuff… but I haven’t.

 

Think.  Do. Done.

 

Hello new mantra.