More and more friends, creative clients, and yoga students are sharing with me feelings of being OVERWHELMED.
I often feel that way, too.
Here’s one thing that’s helped.
Last June I started using a Productivity Planner that has definitely transformed my life.
One genius thing about this particular planner is that it forces you to define each day what your MOST IMPORTANT TASK is.
Underneath MOST IMPORTANT TASK (which is indeed in ALL CAPS and bold) there’s one hint:
“If this was the only thing you did today you’d be satisfied.”
While on some days this is pretty obvious, determining your MIT can be a major, eye-opening challenge.
It forces you to examine what your priorities really are.
And it makes you seriously consider whether or not your actions will make a difference.
Tim Ferris credits this planner with his own prodigious efficiency, sharing this equation:
MOST IMPORTANT =
usually most uncomfortable /
most procrastinated
Each day when I try to define that MOST IMPORTANT THING, I can’t help but be reminded of a poem by the 13th century Sufi Rumi:
There is one thing in this world
that you must never forget to do.
If you forget everything else and not this,
there’s nothing to worry about;
but if you remember everything else and forget this,
then you will have done nothing in your life.
Rumi, unfortunately, doesn’t tell us what that “one thing” is.
Apparently we each have to figure that out for ourselves.
That inquiry, however, is invaluable–and may, in fact, be the MOST IMPORTANT THING after all.
PS Along these lines of Most Important Thing, I recommend signing up for Daily Action. I get a single text a day, suggesting the one phone call or email I can send to help make a difference. Click HERE for more info.
PPS If you want to know more about my daily planner, click HERE. (Plus: I really like the company’s name: Intelligent Change.)
PPPS If you want some help uncarving your CREATIVE MOST IMPORTANT THING, email me HERE.
