Calendar: Authorized Events Only

Posted Thursday, April 24th, 2008 8:48 am by Dave Moyer

You’ve got lots to do, and you want to get it done. So, you put it down on your calendar in a neat little schedule, so you can block out what you’ll get done, when, and you can sleep well knowing that everything will get done. Great! Well, if you’re like me, and many others like me, more often than not you don’t get everything done on the schedule, if you even try! While you work during the day, in the back of your mind you know that the schedule you’ve set for yourself is unnecessary. It doesn’t really have to get done now. We want to get it done on that day, but we don’t. We do these things when they make more sense to do during the day, often letting the things that we need to do slip away as well.

What’s the easy solution? Don’t put the things you want to do on the calendar. Keep the calendar for things that must be done on that day or at that time, or not at all. “Clean off credenza” most likely doesn’t absolutely have to get done on April 25, 2008 at 2:45pm, while “Print agendas for meeting” most likely will. Find another place to keep track of the time-insensitive tasks, and keep the calendar, in the words of David Allen, “sacred territory”. Not only is your calendar much cleaner, but you know in the back of your mind that you really need to get these things done, and you’re way more likely to.

photo credit: Dylanisneat