Of Ladders and Rocks!

Of Ladders and Rocks!

Does life sometimes feel like a perpetual merry-go-round?  Either we can’t get on or we can’t get off!  There’s always far too much to do than there is time available to do it and even when we manage to catch a passing chair and get cracking with our to do list, it’s a race to fit in as much stuff as possible before we fall off again!  Sometimes it feels like it’s never-ending!

To add insult to injury, while we’re trying to control our day-to-day activities, we never really seem to get ahead with the things that really matter to us, or the things that will really make a difference to our long-term future, and so we keep catching the ride, and then watch ourselves merrily go around in circles!

Does that sound familiar?  I must admit that my life can descend into this kind of merry-go-round chaos on occasion.  It’s characterised by times when I’ve taken on too much either because the project sounded so interesting I just couldn’t walk away or because I was just too embarrassed to offend and didn’t say no when I knew that I should have.

With these personal tendencies in mind, I’m now trying very hard to control my urge to start new (and exciting!) projects without checking my capacity to absorb the additional work and I’m also trying to make more use of my “No thank you, not at the moment” muscle.  Neither of these behaviours come easily to me!

But this is just the tip of the iceberg, because as well as fending off new adventures and commitments, we’re also bombarded on a daily basis by our mental domestic to-do list.  Sometimes the perpetual noise from the daily tasks that need addressing can be so loud that it’s all that we can hear and so our aspirational tasks are subordinated to the things that really should be subordinated.  Now I want to be clear about this: it’s not that our domestic to-do list should be completely ignored, no, it’s just that we should be very careful how and what we prioritise as the really important tasks.

Anyone who is familiar with the works of the late Stephen Covey may recognise this quote:

If the ladder is not leaning against the right wall, every step we take just gets us to the wrong place faster.

The quote is warning us of the dilemma of being successful at the wrong thing, and in the context of this blog, that can apply to our domestic to-dos as much any other erroneous, tantalising, exciting, boring, necessary distraction that comes our way.

But as I’ve already mentioned, we can’t just ignore our domestic tasks, these inevitably need to get done otherwise we end up becoming overwhelmed with disorganisation and mess, but what we shouldn’t allow these tasks is the luxury of being our priorities at the expense of those things which will enhance our lives in the future.

So the dilemma becomes how to prioritise the “right” things whilst still keeping some semblance of normality in our lives.  After all, we wouldn’t want to be embarrassed at the arrival of unexpected visitors because we’re still in our PJs at 2pm and there’s a sink full of dishes because we’ve been busy working on our book proposal all day.

As with everything in life then, it’s important to keep a sense of balance.

Some of you may have seen the video on youtube depicting the prioritisation scenario by the use of a jar and some rocks, pebbles and sand.  In essence, the video tells us to prioritise by dealing with the important priorities (rocks – our goals) first, then dealing with the less urgent but still important tasks next (the pebbles – eg, domestic chores) and finally dealing with the minutiae (sand, eg, non-essential tasks) last.  In other words, the smaller the task the easier it is to fit it in between other more meaningful tasks.

Rock, Pebbles, Sand

If you were to try this scenario in reverse filling the jar with the sand, pebbles then rocks, it just wouldn’t work!  And is this not true of our lives?  If we prioritise the day with firstly non-essential tasks, then do our domestic to-dos and finally get around to doing some work on our goals we will have either run out of time or energy, or, most likely both and be unable to achieve anything meaningful on our goals!

But like everything else that deals with self improvement, working in this way takes discipline, practice and persistence.  However, the returns are enormous!  If you’re not already working in this way why not give it a try to see how you get along and whether it does indeed have a positive impact on your goal achievement?  It might just give you a break from the merry-go-round!

Please leave a comment to let me know how you get on!

Photo: Steph & Teddy Gravell