After a series of excuses, a stretch of procrastination, and a bitter taste of guilt, I decided to sit down and write my to-do list.
Having read books like Atomic Habits, Tiny habits, and Seven Habits of highly effective people for decades, my faith in To-do lists has only plummeted. I was just about done making a list when I decided to flaunt my new morning routine to my girlfriend. "After I reach home, I will do the following," I said. My to-do list:
She almost hates the books I mentioned. Her perspective is usually naive and of an outsider in the self-help genre. Don't tell her this, but 💡Robert Greene says in Mastery that an outsider's perspective is necessary for innovation.
That question opened my mind to a possibility. I could suddenly see why my to-do lists were not working. I could have done a better job of defining a time frame.
A to-do list without a time frame is a bucket list.
You might as well start reading pride and prejudice when you are 80.
is a better to-do list, but it still does not have a time frame. It is better because at least it is easy to spot that it doesn't.
is a procrastination enabler - in disguise. It looks like it has a time frame, but it doesn't.
🖼️The frame has to have two boundaries, at least. 🥘After dinner -- before bed 🛏️. I urge you to try it out. Better yet, don't use words to create your boundaries. You guessed it; use emojis.