Dumb Little Man | Tips for Life

Do you have trouble getting going on things? Do you find yourself putting off tasks, ignoring your to-do list (if you have one at all), and reading blogs when you should be working?

I’m going to share a simple secret with you today that could turn you into a shining example of productivity, racing through your daily list of tasks, and enjoying yourself while doing so. Impossible? It worked for me…

Like most students, I tended to procrastinate whilst I was an undergraduate. If there was anything I didn’t want to do, I put it off for as long as possible! With an essay deadline hanging over me and dragging my mood down, I’d end up doing all sorts of non-urgent tasks instead (“filing my lecture notes” and “organizing my books” were favorites). But then I picked up a copy of Mark Forster’s Get Everything Done and Still Have Time to Play and flicked through it. And I read these words, which had a profound impact on me:

"One of the laws of resistance is that the more we avoid something the greater the resistance becomes. Therefore every time we put something off, the more difficult it becomes to do. It would be nice if resistance then went away for a bit and left us alone – but it does not. It remains present as a cloud of unspecified anxiety.

Fortunately, the reverse is true. When we do succeed in overcoming our resistance and get going on something, it becomes easier to do."

Later in the book, one of the time-management methods Mark recommends is to start your day by doing the thing you’re resisting most. That way, you’ll get it out of the way and off your mind – and, since the things we resist are often the most important ones in meeting our goals (phoning a difficult client, writing an essay, publishing a blog post), this ensures the crucial stuff gets done before distractions and interruptions arise.

And – even better – you’ll enjoy yourself a lot more this way. Because once that hard thing is done with, everything else will seem easy in comparison – and if you tackle your tasks in order of resistance, you’ll constantly be rewarded by moving onto something you’d rather be doing.

You’ll also be much less tempted to procrastinate – which is a symptom of having a lot of resistance to your work. Of course we want to put off starting something we’re anxious or uncertain about – but the task won’t go away just because you’re trying to ignore it. And, as Mark says, the resistance remains as “a cloud of unspecified anxiety”, making you feel guilty and down even while you’re procrastinating.

If you’re still skeptical (and I was at first), just give the Resistance Principle a try for a day. Start with whatever you’re thinking, “I don’t wanna!” about. See what happens. Did you have a more productive day? A less stressful day? A sense of achievement?

(For more on this, see Mark Forster’s blog and the book Get Everything Done and Still Have Time to Play, available from Amazon.)

And let us know whether applying the Resistance Principle works for you

Ali