Tone Your Flabby Task List

Tone Your Flabby Task List

Do you know how to use a task list to its fullest potential? Do you ever find yourself forgetting things, because they weren't on your list? Or realizing that you forgot to check your list and missed doing something important? Or turned away from it because it was overwhelming? These are all signs of a flabby task list.

Just as getting in physical shape requires a little effort and perseverance, so does getting your task list in shape. Here are five ways to shape it up:
Productivity Slump

The Dreaded Productivity Slump

I've had a rough couple of months, and my productivity has taken a hit. It reminded me of a week years ago. Read on for the description, and what I did:

It was the week from hell: a situation with a family member threatened to sever a relationship, I was recovering from a vertigo-inducing double ear infection, and my daughter picked up a virus that caused her to vomit for 9 hours. Then work went to you-know-where in a handbasket, and we went on vacation. I spent the next two weeks trying to catch up, unsuccessfully.
Energy Sinkholes

How to Fill In Energy Sinkholes

Managing our energy is one task that working parents face daily. Given the demands on us from both the office and home, we can quickly become drained. An old article over at Lifehack.Org got me thinking about energy sinkholes. I thought I would expand on these for working people.
Creating Space

Creating Space

When I was first studying music, one teacher told me that music was what happened in the spaces between the notes. It was just as important to be creating space as it was to hit the perfect pitch, tone and expression. This thought changed the way I looked at the music, giving the spaces as much importance as the notes themselves.

Life is also like this. We need to give as much weight to the spaces between activities as we do the activities. If we allow those spaces to vanish, much of the beauty is lost. (If you don't believe me, listen to Flight Of the Bumblebee a few times in a row).We face overwhelm daily with all of the information that comes at us.. It is so tempting to keep on going forward with our never-ending to-do lists, never taking the breaks to give meaning to our tasks. One important concept in getting to a more peaceful state is to slow down and create those periods of space.
stocks

Assess Your Life Like Your Stocks

When deciding to hang onto a stock you have purchased, it's not about what you paid before. You have to consider if you would buy it again today, knowing about its performance since you purchased it. The same guidelines can help us get more deliberate in our lives.