Take Advantage of the Day
January 2nd, 2009For those you who, like me, are at work on this last-day-most-people-are-taking-off, you’re probably finding it rather quiet. A few people are at work, either to do specific tasks or because they’re saving vacation for another time. It doesn’t feel like a work day, so not much “real” work is getting done.
This is a great day, however, to knock off those nagging tasks that should only take a few minutes, and you’ve been leaving “until you had time”. Everyone has a to do list, and all sorts of things get added. However, some seem to linker forever, not getting done but not getting deleted. Today is the day! Either do them, or decide they’re not worth doing and delete them from the list. Clean out your to do list, freeing yourself from all the guilt of seeing them on there every day. Free your mental energy for things that matter to you, and let go of things that would be nice but aren’t necessary. Perhaps the reasons you wanted to do something no longer exist. Perhaps a particular task has been made irrelevant by other developments. Perhaps you’ve moved in a new direction, and should be doing something different instead. Perhaps others add things to your list when you’re not looking (I know this happens to me!).
Take the time to examine each item on your to do list, and either make progress on it or delete it. Go through the piles of “papers to be dealt with” on your desk, and file, recycle, or address each one. If you get yourself in the right mood, you can get quite ruthless and get a lot done.
Then you can go back to work next Monday, when the New Year really begins, with fresh energy and a well-ordered list of things you really need to do.