This 4-step process is a great way for me to assess each day, project, task, etc.

Thanks!
Corey

“It all comes down to self control.” – Yes AND a lot of the self-control is in the short-term. Once you’ve thought it through and decided to fully commit to a new project, you can really let rip.

@ Hashim – Great post, thanks for sharing. Another example of why it pays to really think things through at the beginning, before you commit.

@ Orna – Thanks for introducing me to ‘ideaphoria’! It’s the kind of medical condition that should exist, even if it didn’t, so it’s great to find out it does.

@ White Shark

1. Excellent point about partnering with people with complementary skills. That’s one of the core skills we recommend, especially if you can find someone who loves the jobs you hate.

2. I’ve got a lot of value out of parts of GTD, and the ‘Someday/Maybe’ folder is a nice idea. However, I’m a little sceptical about the idea that there’s a one-size-fits-all system out there that will transform our lives.

1) You may have the same personality type that I have, namely, you’re a “scanner”.

Scanners get very excited and very involved at the start of a project because its novel and therefore interesting.

But as they do more and more research and realise that quite quickly they’ve virtually “covered all the ground” and understand the problem really well, then their interest tends to wain.

And they’re now on the lookout for the next project that they can throw themselves (briefly) into.

Many scanners have real guilt feelings and anxiety about their “failure to complete” but I’m sorry to say, but that’s just the way we’re built.

We get excited and enthusiastic quickly, but when we get quite quickly to the stage where we can see the entire scope of the problem, and can enunciate what needs to be done to complete the project, then we’re keen to move onto the next thing.

You get loads of value at the front end, but you better hand the project on to a non-scanner plodder to do the completion.

The sccanner can explain what needs to be done to the plodder – he just can’t be bothered to do it himself as his interest is waning, now that he’s already seen the solution in his mind.

Thanks to the author Barbara Sher who brought heartfelt relief to thousands of sufferers worldwide first by explaining that you’re not the only person in the world who feels “completion failure anxiety”.

Secondly, she gives you permission to get excited early on, and then gives you permission to happily drop it when you lose interest.

Thirdly, she suggests some really simple ways to cope with completion failure anxiety – namely buy loads of box files and every new project you get interested in you label and then fill a new box file with the papers, and then you celebrate the incredible number of projects that have fired you up – you point to the wall full of box files and smile contentedly – you don’t beat yourself up because none was taken ploddingly to the absolute conclusion.

And there are many types of scanner – I’m a “cyclical” scanner so I’ll lose interest for, say, six months then I’ll glance the spine of one of the box files and then dive in again re-invigorated, wondering how far I had got last time, and what new thoughts I have now for taking the project further.

There are “serial” scanners; there are “keep all the plates spinning” scanners – there are many types.

And Barbara recommends careers or jobs that you might find more suited to your particular scanner personality.

And she holds holiday courses on some Mediterranean island to help you work through your scanner issues – see her website at:

http://www.barbarasher.com/

I preferred the earlier title of her book that helps scanners, which was:

“What Do I Do When I Want To Do Everything : a revolutionary programme for doing everything that you love”

but her publisher has given it a new title, which I’m sorry but I don’t know.

2) Have you heard of “GTD” – Getting Things Done. Its a great way to organise your whole life, and part of it involves creating a folder called “Projects I’ll do sometime in the future”.

I think throwing a piece of paper about each interesting but non-priority project in there is a great way to keep a tentative hold on things that interest you, but which realistically you’re never going to get around to doing anytime soon.

So my advice would be “get the non-urgent stuff off your desk so you can focus on what’s important, and only on that number of projects that can realistically be dealt with in the time available”. If you have to dump tons of stuff to the “won’t be started, let alone completed, anytime soon” folder, then put them there.

Be ruthless.

If the boss is screaming for 9 projects to be completed in 2 weeks and you know that only 3 can be achieved by then, take 9 folders into your boss and say “Excuse me, Sir, which 3 would you like completed in 2 weeks time?” Let him decide. After all, he’s a leader and he’s paid more than you – so who’s the best person to choose?

Using that “sometime later but probably never” folder, means you’ve filed it realistically, its off your desk, there is a memory held in that folder, but really you should be focussing on the more pressing stuff that have completion dates loaming.

Unfortunately “Getting things done” is a title adopted by many authors, but you can find the true guru of GTD by typing those 3 letters into the Google search box and his entry will come out on top – its David Allen at http://www.davidco.com

Get the book – adopt his system and your life will be a breeze.

That’s no idle claim – I’ve seen the life-changing, life-affirming testimonials from people who were previously “all at sea” but who are now calm and completely relaxed although their schedule and workload hasn’t reduced one little bit. They just now have a system that they know is effective aand reliable and which stops them getting anxious that something forgotten or unintentionally overlooked is going to trip them up tomorrow, or next week, or sometime.

Life change is not achieved, of course, by my single suggestion of the “Do sometime later maybe never” folder – that’s just a small part of the overall schema, but potentially useful in the particular scenario outlined above.

As Daffy Duck says: “That’s all, folks!”

END

I never knew about that, but I can completely relate. If someone else is hype about a project, it tends to get me excited. But that feeling can’t take me along to complete the project like I should.

I wrote a similar post from the perspective of entertainment industry professionals:

3 Questions to Ask Before Working For Free
http://www.careergreenlight.com/working-for-free/