When we write a to-do list, we write down the specific actions we want to take to get something done.
Do this, do that, do it with bells on.
But I was struck recently while listening to Oliver Burkeman, the journalist and fascinating productivity chap.
He questions the following: why do we rarely assess our to-do lists based on the consequences of doing the thing or not do the thing?
What we tend to do, is write the list with a focus on the action, not the consequence the action creates.
Because every thing we do or don’t do has a consequence.
From crossing a road, to not crossing a road.
To speaking up or not speaking up.
We simply cannot do both things, so we must choose to do or not to do.
Everything in life is a choice of consequences, from seemingly minor to large and meaningful.
It really changed my thinking this week.
The concept is brutally simple.
We have about 4,000 weeks to live our one time lives (give or take). Toiling on earth as entirely finite beings with an expiry date none of us will ever know.
Being finite means we can never do everything we want to do with our time here on earth. It’s utterly impossible.
We must consciously choose what we want to do or not want to do.
Despite what the click-bait 4-hour work weeks and the unbelievably productive morning routines those preternaturally successful executives you read about will have you believe.
They seem to be able to do it all.
But it’s not simply BS, it’s an utter fallacy, and we know it.
No-one has actually mastered time. If they did, undertakers would be busking on street corners to make ends meet.
***
Remember the fad of inbox zero? Utterly impossible. In fact, attempting that creates far more stress and wasted time than the promise itself.
Replying to emails fast? You just get more emails.
Doing work on time or ahead of time? You just get more work.
Productivity apps that answer our cry of “if only I can get control of my time, I’ll be the person / do the thing / live the dream I was made for?”
It’s impossible.
Which is why Oliver suggests this different approach.
Accept your finitude.
Accept you are finite in your resources and capabilities. Accept that, along with every other human on the planet since we first walked on earth, nobody has mastered time.
What a relief.
The mindset of finitude is guided by the fact that you have control of how you cash in your 4000 weeks on earth.
Rather than looking at your to-do list as a never ending list of all the things to be done, look at it as a choice to determine the consequence of doing that thing, or not doing it at all.
And then use that to determine if it’s really worth it after-all. Only you can determine that. Not an app. Or a self-help guru.
For example, you need to get a presentation done by the end of the week. Delivering it on Monday night annoy your team or your boss, but getting it done by Friday means you would have to cancel dinner with your partner. Those are the consequences.
Piss off the people at work, or piss off the person you love.
By thinking about the action as a consequence, you align with what you want out of life - or what you don’t.
This week, I wrote down my to-do list. It was long, the kind of Godzilla sized to-do list that had babies. Lots of them. Breeding like sub to-dos in an orgy of utterly urgent and stupidly important.
It has always been this way.
And will always be this way.
Every job or company I’ve ever worked for has been comprised of an unrelenting tsunami of work.
I have tried everything. Productivity apps, self help books, Instagram gurus. They always give me the same hit of adrenaline at first, starting with the delicious excitement that finally I have found the answer to managing my life.
I never do.
Within a few days or hours, I’m back to my bucket full of to-do list sand, the one with the hole in it, filling up, just as always, while missed opportunities and emails pour out the bottom as I helplessly watch.
***
Taking my pen and channeling my inner Oliver, I looked at my list through the lens of the consequences.
Miraculously - and liberatingly - I came up with 3 things. Just 3. And it’s all I did this week, give or take a few things that I had to bat away.
I can’t say it didn’t give me slight nerves. I could still hear the things I had not put on my to-do list, crying like stabbed banshees.
But I accepted my finitude and said to myself, these 3 things are what I need to do and want to do to fit with my values.
By focusing on these 3 things, the summed consequences of doing them and not doing the rest made me more motivated than I had been in a while. They aligned with my goals and value in life.
Give it a shot and see what it brings up in you.
With love and choosing how to spend your 4000 weeks on earth,
The Jolt.
PS, here is Oliver’s site:
https://www.oliverburkeman.com/fourthousandweeks