Completing unfinished tasks is a great way to change your life for the better. Unfinished tasks are huge silent stressors that steal hours of your precious time. They are energy and productivity thieves, but you can eliminate them.
From a button missing on your suit coat to the mess in your garage, every unfinished task is robbing you blind. Just like someone embezzling funds, these thieves don't steel in big obvious ways. They tug at your attention only for a few moments at a time. Not a big deal. Right? Wrong. Their cumulative effect is staggering. You may have as many as fifty unfinished tasks nagging at you.
Some of these may only take a few moments of your attention. For example, a missing button is a moment of aggravation when you realize you still haven't sewn it on and then perhaps a few more minutes while you look for another outfit. A messy garage might mean a half an hour of frustration as you look for a misplaced tool. Not to mention the guilt you feel every time you walk through it and see the mess sitting there.
Just imagine if each of those fifty unfinished tasks took on the average only 30 seconds of your attention a day. Do you have any idea how much time you would needless lose a year? Try 9,125 minutes. That's approximately 152 hours, or almost four full forty hour work weeks.
What would your business look like if you had 4 extra weeks of creative attention, rather than distraction and stress? What would your relationships with you family and friends be like with an extra four weeks of attention?
So how do you stop these thieves? You do so with four simple steps.
Step 1--Write down ALL of the unfinished task you can think of. Think about work and home and write down every disorganized drawer you have wanted to get to, project you keep thinking you will complete, appointment you have intended to set up, etc. Write down tasks as small as sewing a button on to as big as an incomplete home renovation. Anything that isn't finished, write it down.
Just writing these tasks down will begin reducing the mental and emotional deficit they have been causing you. Congratulations!
Step 2--Next to each unfinished task write down the first action step you must take to get moving. These action steps can be very small. For example, if you keep meaning to get your car into the shop because of some annoying rattle, then write down "call and setup appointment." Or, if you want to store keepsakes in the attic, then write down "pick-up packing boxes on the way home from work."
You benefit from writing down the first step in two ways. First, procrastination is often times due to feeling overwhelmed, so focusing on the first step helps you overcome procrastination. Second, people who write down goals are tremendously more successful at accomplishing those goals than people who don't.
Step 3--Complete the five easiest tasks first. Why? You have been stuck on this stuff forever. Half of the battle is just starting. Knocking out several easy tasks will help you over the mental hurdle that has been holding you back. Each success will add momentum.
Step 4--Check off each completed task and immediately schedule the next action step you will take to complete another task. The biggest mistake people make after writing their list is shoving it to the side and never looking at it again. Avoid this mistake by using the completion of one task as a trigger for the next task. The key is scheduling. Do not ever allow yourself the costly luxury of not having your next action scheduled. This is the defining difference between stressed-out people with furrowed brows and peaceful people with completed lists.
You cannot imagine how much you will change your life for the better just by eliminating unfinished tasks until you do it. So don't hesitate. Start making you life better right now by creating your list of unfinished tasks and plow through it using these four simple tests.
Allyson Lewis is a renowned author, motivational speaker and time management expert who has trained thousands of people to achieve greater productivity and create a more meaningful life by prioritizing, organizing and simplifying. If you seriously want to change your life for the better, Allyson has numerous free tools to get you started today. You can get immediate access to free worksheets, webinars, checklists and more with the click of a few buttons by visiting her website http://www.the7minutelife.com/. At her website you can also find out about her revolutionary time management system, The 7 Minute Life TM System or her groundbreaking unique daily planning tool, The 7 Minute Life Daily TM Planner.
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