This applies not only to the things you have to do, but also to the things you think you want to do. Maybe you think you should learn Spanish, but you haven’t actually done anything to learn Spanish. Acknowledging that you’re not committed enough to the idea of actually doing the work of learning Spanish can help close this loop. Letting go of the feeling that you must learn Spanish may be just the thing that frees your mind enough to decide what you want. Start paddleboarding On a whim. The point is that the New Year is not the time to start something new. It’s time to let go of things from the past that are no longer serving you.
In many ways it’s the antidote to that ever-popular “just do it” slogan. just do it This means you should not think about it, instead deciding what you really want to do or should do. Maybe spend some time remembering why you wanted to do it in the first place, and if those reasons no longer resonate with you, just don’t do just do it.
If you like this idea, I highly recommend getting Allen’s book. It goes into more detail on this idea and gives some practical advice on letting go. You can still take care of those things if you decide, years from now, while you’re paddleboarding in the Sea of Cortez, that you really want to learn Spanish now and are ready to work.
Remember to live
I will confess, my enthusiasm for Getting things done has decreased over the years. Not because the system doesn’t work, but because I’ve dramatically improved my life by doing less, not more. It is not that I have stopped working. It’s that I found a lot of things that I felt like I should do weren’t really my thoughts; They were ideas I internalized from other places. I didn’t really want to do them, so I didn’t, then I felt guilty about it.
While everything I’ve written above is good advice for starting a healthy habit and keeping it going, it’s worth spending some time and making sure you know why you want to do what you’re doing. I have been reading again of Bertrand Russell In praise of idlenessAnd this line jumped out at me: “Modern man thinks that everything should be done for someone else, and never for himself.”
In the case of habits, I think it’s worth considering whether you want to start a habit because you like the habit or because you think you should because it will make you happier or healthier or more successful. Doing things because you genuinely love them for their own sake is much more likely to lead to success.
do the work
As one of my writing professors used to say, to be a writer you have to sit in a chair and actually write. To become a yogi, you have to do yoga. To run, you have to run. There is no easy way around this. You have to work in your grown up pants.
However, on the flip side, as Clear explains in the beginning Atomic habitsThe way to change who you are is what you do. “Every time you write a page, you are a writer. Every time you practice the violin, you are a musician. Every time you start exercising, you are an athlete. Every time you act, you become the future self you want to be.
