Have many ideas-do one!
Tips to begin making priorities
I'm just back from a wonderful whirlwind tour of Ottawa, ON; Montreal, PQ, and Vancouver, BC and arrived back to my home office in Seattle, WA to find loads of paperwork to catch-up: emails, phone calls, filing, correspondence course evaluations, Team SCT minutes, RRCO minutes and committee work, etc. Phew! And of course, during my trip while I was spending time with all sorts of phenomenal people in my life, we began creating new ventures and things to do. So, I'm in a highly creative phase of life.
The only problem I have with the creative phase is that I have so many ideas I find that I get overwhelmed. I was sitting on my deck this morning sipping a cup of tea and allowing ideas to bounce around my brain when this message popped in:
Have many ideas-do one!
I first remember reading this on the wall of a bookshop in Ottawa and it is attributed to the Buddha. I took the phrase and put it on the SCT bookmarks and used it in my early (paper) newsletters. It's time to revisit.
Sometimes it seems there is so much going on and so many things to do that we become paralyzed. Many of you will recognize this form of procrastination! If you have a number of things that you would like to accomplish but find there just isn't the time, so you end up not doing anything but the usual day-to-day routines, this is for you:
Pick something, just one thing, and follow through by doing it. It may be something as simple as completing a course of study you have started. (Of course, this is a reminder to all you SCT students out there who began a course with loads of enthusiasm to find that the course materials are nearly completed by you have just lost the 'umph' to finish.)
To begin, I find the best thing to do is to write a list-but make it a visual list. When working many years ago with my long-time friend, client and student Lee Wallace, I was able to share with him a simple organization tool that helped me. Within the next few days take a little time to make a chart, as follows:
- Take a piece of Bristol board or large piece of paper
- Using something simple like a small glass, draw circles across the board to represent the areas of your life that you have started something or ideas that you wish to begin (you could just use a graph by I like the idea of it being an organic design)
- Write a simple title to represent each one of your objectives or creative ideas in each of the circles (I like to use different colors for each topic)
- Then draw a line down from each circle and leave spaces for breaking into steps.
- At the bottom of the page draw another circle for each topic to indicate completion
- Post it on your office wall or in the kitchen-somewhere you'll see it each day and be motivated to continue
- As you complete a step either cross it out or use a sticker to celebrate, just like when you were a kid!
- Do something good to celebrate your successes and completions! Woohoo!
If you have too many things to do and your chart is overwhelming, then it isn't going to work. So, don't put too many things on the list, be realistic. If you are not sure what is realistic, then this is a really good time to enlist the help of a Life Facilitator or Coach or Counselor to sort out life's priorities.
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