The more free-floating to-do’s you carry around in your head, the more likely it is that you’re compromising your day-to-day effectivenes — and specifically, how well you’re managing your time.
Why? Because our ability to concentrate is not a purely cognitive process. It turns out that our subconscious and our feelings significantly influence our performance. If we know that we have to-do’s hanging out there somewhere – tasks, intentions, commitments that are not written down – our subconscious feels the need to devote some energy to keeping them from vanishing altogether.
This is what so many people experience a low-level, generalized anxiety that they’re missing something they should be doing; and it’s the classic middle-of-the-night fear that they have missed something important.
Fortunately, the solution (or at least the start of the solution) is simple. Take a Saturday or Sunday morning and make a list of the all the to-do’s, commitments, and next-actions that are jostling for consciousness in your mind.
By getting them out of your head and onto paper, two great things happen. First, you relieve the mental pressure of having to remember them, and second, you have the ability to review them and prioritize them in a more organized, rational way.
I know that you might resist doing this because the list might be so long that you’ll feel intimidated or depressed.
But do it anyway.
Once you get over the shock of doing it, you’ll feel tangible relief – and you’ll be able to concentrate more effectively and more efficiently on whatever you’re attending to in the moment.
Don’t worry about not knowing what to do once you’ve got the list on paper. The mere act of creating the list itself – and of freeing up the mental energy it brings – will help you use the list wisely.
