On Task Reminder

I posted a "daily motivator" from Ralph Marston on my Soky.Biz blog titled "Connect your Goals to your actions" yesterday morning at 6:33 am and guess I've already forgotten it. Laying in bed this morning at 3:00 A.M. my mind was busily coding and recoding "stuff" I had been working on this week. Most of what I was working on was toward my goals for the core site and content management system, in a round about way. The things I chose to work on were what could be considered advanced features, value added features or in a word, "cool" features.

Arriving at my office at 4:00 this morning I cranked everything up, checked my sites, checked my favorite blogs, checked my favorite forums and started 'getting busy.' I enjoy sitting at the kitchen table with a spiral notebook and a cup of freshly brewed coffee writing ideas down. This is how I dream, invent, create, code, explore and list. I wrote an entire page about what I call the "site ninja" which in a sense is a custom web spider I've had in my head for years.

Ironically, I was writing on the last page of the current notebook. I say ironically because it really was the last thing I needed to be doing. I went to my desk and got a new notebook and interestingly enough, the first page already had some writing on it. It said, "focus." I poured another cup of coffee, sat at the table and started writing a system to document and annotate internal functions of my sites... or... writing something that was not exactly on the top of my priority list.

Speaking of lists... where was my priority list anyway? What? I don't have one? Oh sure, I have that list in my head, dozens of 3x5 cards on my desk, pages in my notebooks with lines and lines of ideas and to-dos', but I don't have a list. There is no shortage of 'reasons' for my disjointed organization from the server upgrades to waiting on the core data, but in the end I'm not focused on my personal goals. (Which is an entirely different post.)

Looking at my genius plan for organizing, documenting, and even injecting improved routines into existing applications, I realized that I was not doing what I was supposed to be doing. I stood from my table, paced the office a bit, cleaned my water filter and decided that I really need to make a good list. I know how to do this! I've even received formal training from Franklin Planner school to a week long Seven Habits class. Four categories, important, not important, urgent, not urgent... I know this stuff!!!

Refilling my coffee cup again, I sat and filled an entire page in no time flat. I have allot to do!!! As I wrote I realized that I had put some things off that really shouldn't have been. There were other things that I put off that are just so hard or complicated that I hated even thinking about it. It is a good thing to just sit down and face the facts don't you think?

So I finished my list (for the most part), dreaming of my project/task manager system and prioritized my list. It's going to be a very busy weekend for me. Then, I sat at my desk and decided to blog this process. Why? To keep from doing the first thing on my list. HA! No, it's my way of documenting the process as well as remind myself next week and the weeks that follow of my morning revelations. You see, I'm my own greatest reader and I read my blogs over and over again.

I also write this to share with other people who may deal with the same issues. My mind moves at warp speed sometimes and I have so many ideas, plans, dreams, hopes, desires that I tend to overwhelm myself. Sometimes a guy has to take a step back to see the whole picture instead of that sparkle of genius that may be brightest at the moment.

So to all my fellow procrastinators and disorganized dreamers, know that you're not alone. There is another person in Bowling Green KY who deals with the same demons and tries his best to overcome them. I'll be ticking down my list until the "urgent/important" items are complete. Perhaps refocusing on what's important will help me connect my goals to my actions and bring my dreams from thin sheets of ruled paper to reality.

priority list | organization | procrastinating | goals | dreams | achieve | small business | success