What Will You Have Done At The End of Today?

I know this is a problem I have, but I can't seem to get out of the trap and it's coloring my perceptions of other people. Sometimes I think it's unfair, but at other times I wonder whether people really are relatively inefficient users of time.

Enough with being cryptic. I'm talking about the fact that I'm a list maker. I have so many things going on and so many tasks that need to be completed that I'm completely driven by my Outlook calendar. If it doesn't get on my calendar, it doesn't get done. Every little task that needs to be done must be scheduled on my calendar. I actually use my calendar as a "To Do List" of sorts. Because I'll often schedule a task during any empty spot on my schedule and not actually do it at that time. However, it then gets on my reminder list automatically and pops up whenever I open Outlook at the start of every day. So, even if I didn't complete a task, it stares me in the face every day all day.

The interesting thing is that when I don't actually fill up my calendar with tasks, I still keep busy doing lots of things (I'm never just sitting idle wondering what to do), but I don't get anything important done on those days. I stay busy, but at the end of the day, I realize I got very little done. As a result, I have started to dislike people who don't maintain a clear To Do list of what they want to achieve that day. I believe that they essentially end up being completely unproductive during the day. They stay "busy" and feel that they're oh so busy, but don't really get any projects done. I think if you don't set clear goals of what you're going to achieve each day, you'll end up finding ways to fill up your time with inefficient nonsense. If you don't have a clearly defined set of tasks for each hour of the day, it is easy to keep busy and then not make any headway on your major projects. It's not that I'm never behind. In fact, as I said, I often don't get things done during the scheduled time slots since numerous other things crop up each day. However, when that happens, because it is now an ongoing reminder, I know when I'm behind and then schedule times at night or weekends to catch up. If you don't have the task list, you could end up not getting much work done on major projects and not lose any sleep over it. You still watch TV, putter around and relax (because you've worked so hard getting nothing done during the day), get to bed early, and wake up the next day with a fresh goal of nothing.

If you don't know exactly what you're going to get done each day or week, that's exactly what you'll get done.