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Firstly, let me apologise if you were waiting for Thursday’s post on productivity. Earlier this week my Father-in-Law passed away and since then time has been a bit of a blur. In-laws are often painted as "Outlaws" and while the beginnings were rocky I came to think of him as my own Dad and called him such. We had a great love for each other and his passing wasn’t expected. So we’re all in that place of "what the …!!"

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

How has your week and work been going? I’ve titled this post "Doing v Achieving" and it’s something I’m always conscious of.

Am I busy achieving my goals or am I just busy? I am sure we all find ourselves in that space every now and then.

The latter is energy sapping and the former is energy giving.

In my early days as a sales trainer it was drilled into me to write my objectives first.

I once wrote a fantastic session on some aspect of sales and was so pleased with it (must have been revolutionary - I just forget what it was!) I rushed into my boss’s office and said:

"You’ve got to hear this."

I was met with: "What’s the objective of the session?"

To which I responded: "Haven’t written it yet. Will go back and do that in a sec."

She pressed: "No objective and I’m not listening!"

Me: "Okay, but listen to this."

Her: "No objective …."

Me: "Cow!"

And off I dutifully went to write the objective/s.

However, I have to admit articulating what I wanted to achieve from each session actually focused me when writing the process itself. I was always thinking "What am I supposed to achieve here?" and "What must the participants be able to do better?"

If I couldn’t measure it in some way it wasn’t an objective (Even today I am horrified at objectives that start with "To understand … ." How do you measure "understanding?")

Anyway, it means that even when I develop my To-Do list, it must have an action word in it some where. Such as:

• Call David re: project objectives (So I am calling, not anything else and it’s about the project objectives, nothing else!)
• Clean gutters (not just look at them)
• Send CV to Heather

Okay, all very simple I know but many people don’t do this. They just write David’s name, or "gutters" and they’ll know what they mean when the time comes. But when you’re busy, a name or a location just doesn’t cut it and, if you follow David Allens’ view of getting everything out of your head and onto a (effective) list, you’re going to be saving a lot of thinking energy that affects the greenhouse levels*.

(I also know that the gutters are, or aren’t, clean!)

So, while creating a to-do list can be energising and empowering, at the end of the day it can be quite depressing if we haven’t done anything about it. And we may not do anything about it if we haven’t articulated what we actually want to do with the item. Remember, you’re busy with a myriad of conflicting priorities.

It is also a self governing process. You have either done them or you haven’t. You also know that, if they haven’t been done, it may be that you don’t actually need to do them.

So, are you busy doing things or are you busy achieving things?

* - no, I have no proof that excessive thinking adds to the greenhouse effect.

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