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Putting off an unimportant task to work on an important one isn't procrastinating. It's prioritizing. The best bit of this essay is the last 5 paragraphs, how
by drb311 11y ago
Putting off an unimportant task to work on an important one isn't procrastinating. It's prioritizing.
The best bit of this essay is the last 5 paragraphs, how to work on big things:
1. Break it down into fun small goals and experiments that get you in the right direction but offer their own reward.
2. Let desire and interest pull you to certain activities at certain times. You're not a computer working through a todo list. Let serendipity happen.
I find having a to do list pushes me to do nothing. The thought of working through it is just too depressing. Letting desire and interest lead me means I'm usually doing SOMETHING. Often quite useful things it turns out.
When I look back over the first 15 years of my career I did my best work when I had no to do list at all.
- e40 11y agoHonest question: if you don't have a list, how do you make sure you don't forget to do some of the stuff?
- vinaybn 11y agoI think the point is that if you forget to do it, and face no repercussions or regret that remind you of not doing it, that stuff was not worth doing in the first place.
- dasboth 11y agoMy to do list only ever consists of life admin things that have a hard deadline, like paying taxes, doctor's appointments etc. Anything else is just unnecessary pressure, and as someone else pointed out - if there's a penalty for not doing it you'll remember without a list, or it just wasn't that important.
- visakanv 11y agoThe point is that "some of the stuff" doesn't matter– the only thing that matters is that you do the most important thing. Once you've done the most important thing, you do the next most important thing. As long as you keep doing that, you're always in the clear.
- nosideeffects 11y agoI think I've seen this point repeated in many other places. Priority applies to only one thing at a time.
- e40 11y agoThen I won't be giving this to my 9th grader. Everything he's given (by teachers) must be done.
- drb311 11y agoTeaching your 9th grader to prioritize and make his/her own decisions might be the most useful thing you can do.