January 08, 2018 Daily Post
To-dos can be deceiving because an activity is not an achievement.
“Leave 10 voicemails” is easy to check off, with an assumption they may lead somewhere. But what if the goal wasn’t to merely leave voicemails, but to “receive enthusiastic interest from Mr. X”?
The problem is, if the voicemails yielded no reply, the to-do is still checked off. You ‘succeeded’, even when your goal remains unachieved. Mr. X isn’t enthusiastic yet–you’ve yet to even speak.
Consider replacing your To-do List with a Result List. It has 3 components:
After a method in #3 creates the result in #1, you toss out the rest of the items in #3. Why do the rest? Your result was achieved!
Ticking off a to-do does not mean achievement, but working through divergent approaches toward a single goal–while being mindful of why you’re doing it–ensures achievement.
Consider your to-do list: how could you turn it into a Result List?
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