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Cringe-Busting your TODO list

As I’ve said before, items can sometimes linger on your TODO list a lot longer than you’d like, and it can be tricky to understand exactly why that is in each case. I’m convinced cringing is often a factor.

Being that it’s Monday, and a lot of us are planning this week’s activities, why not join me in a modest exercise.

  1. Print out your TODO list (alphabetically, if possible)
  2. Read it over—beginning to end
  3. Go back and circle each item that makes you cringe, or that causes you some kind of existential angst
  4. Per cringe item, think honestly about why you’re freaked out about it. Seriously. What’s the hang-up? (Fear of failure? Dreading bad news? Angry you’re already way overdue?)
  5. Now, again, per cringe item, add a new TODO that will a) make the loathsome task less cringe-worthy, or b) just get the damned thing done
  6. Cross the original cringe items off your list
  7. Work immediately on the new, cringe-busting TODO

If you could do this for just one item on your TODO list today, wouldn’t you be a little better off? Is there a quick call you could make, a draft you could edit, an email you could return, or some other piddling 2-minute task that would plane some cringe off of your hated tasks?

Imagine if you did this today for five items on your list. Now imagine you began each Monday with a Cringe Bust. Might be a handy way to pick off old items and let some unnecessary anxiety out of your working week.

(For extra credit, find the item on your list that’s been making you cringe for the longest. Anybody else turning up items that have been inducing cringes for over a month? Ouch. I suck.)

pitch's picture

While it's definitely not the...

While it's definitely not the answer to all my cringe ToDos, I'm going to second "bignoseduglyguy"'s suggestion of "Never Do It" and even suggest stronger words: "Exorcise This!"

Seriously. A couple years ago, I realized that there were some "I really should" things always in the background of my brain. I realized one day that they represented sort of a religious fascism, my own I'm-not-jewish jewish guilt junk, things that I had unconsciously picked up along the way that I thought I was supposed to do. I realized:

  1. I never, ever want to go to church again. Period.
  2. I love her dearly, but I don't, in fact, want to call my mom once a week.

There have been many more mundane Exorcise This! to-dos since then that I've rooted out like, and some even related to my business and other areas, but those first half-dozen ones struck me like a bolt of lightning.

So, once every couple months, I look through my list of supposed Really Important™ to-dos, especially at the ones that make me cringe, and see if any of them need the ol' exorcise treatment.

 
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