If it can wait

If you keep moving something forward, maybe it doesn't have to happen

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio. Good Morning,
This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast. Today's
tip is that if there is a task on your
to do list that you keep kicking forward, maybe you

(00:24):
don't actually have to do it at all. And if
the task can wait, can you eliminate it instead. Longtime
listeners know that I advocate seeing your to do list
as a contract with yourself. If you put something on
your list, you are committing to getting it done on

(00:44):
a specific day. I know not everyone agrees with me
on this, and I also know that life happens even
if you truly intended to accomplish a task on a
given day. There are times when unexpected things come up,
when you have a new demand on your time, when
something takes a lot longer than you had any reason
to expect, so you prioritize whatever has to be done

(01:07):
that day and roll forward the rest. There are some
tasks that are important but not necessarily urgent, like identifying
your career goals for the year ahead, exploring an idea
for a new service line for your business, or building
a relationship with a new colleague. Those should happen, but
don't have to happen at a specific time. So if

(01:31):
you plan to spend a morning charting out your long
term career goals, but you have a kid home with
the flu or an urgent request from your boss or
biggest client, it makes sense to reschedule the career planning
for another time, So do choose a new time. You
do want to eventually do these things, but with some

(01:51):
other tasks. If you don't get to them on the
day you initially plan to do them, you may be
able to scribble them off the list altogether. Any sort
of email newsletter that you don't read the day it arrives,
you could probably just delete. If you plan to do
a full clean out of your closet over the weekend
and you didn't, maybe it really wasn't that important to you.

(02:15):
Maybe you can throw out some ripped items and drop
a few others in a donation bin and just call
it a day. Some work tasks that keep getting rescheduled
make qualify for the cutting block too. Does the binder
you're creating for new board members really need to include
an organization history and staff org chart. If you keep

(02:36):
moving these items forward to the next days or the
next week's priority list. Take the hint that those may
not be the two most important components. It is quite
possible no one will notice they are missing. If you're
having a hard time with letting go of these tasks,
set a reminder to yourself for next year at this
time to reconsider this decision. If you have managed to

(02:58):
live your life in the apps of something, probably the
task can be gone for good. If you don't get
to something the day you would plan to, rather than
reflexively moving it to the next day or the next day,
consider whether you can just skip the task instead. If
it is not essential that you do a task today,

(03:19):
is it important that you ever do it? Sometimes yes,
but sometimes the answer is actually no, and that is
pretty liberating to realize. If you eliminate any unnecessary tasks
from your to do list, you can tell me what
you cross out and how you feel. You can reach

(03:40):
me at Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. In the meantime,
this is Laura. Thanks for listening, and here's to making
the most of our time. Thanks for listening to before breakfast.

(04:02):
If you've got questions, ideas, or feedback, you can reach
me at Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. Before Breakfast
is a production of iHeartMedia. For more podcasts from iHeartMedia,
please visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you

(04:24):
listen to your favorite shows.