Something that helps with getting things done is making your work visible. This is at the heart of things like the brain dump. Pouring out your internal world into the external, particularly through some sort of kinetic activity like writing or typing, makes what you need to do more easily seen and thus more real. This morning, I made myself a to-do list with 15 items on it on the whiteboard next to my desk. At ten pm tonight, I’ve done all but five of them.
The trick here is to not feel like a failure due to those five items. I knew I wouldn’t get to everything, and that things would come up—I decided it was more important to go to the neighborhood bar with Mr. Starter for a nice glass of wine before dinner, for example. The list, and the process of getting what I needed to do out of my head and into the real world, helped me focus and prioritize.
How did you make your work visible today? Let us know below!