Michael Koehler

In my last post, I discussed work as either a sprint or a marathon and gave a business example; but we are all more likely to experience this on a personal level.  After all, life itself is a marathon, one that we want to be purposeful, successful, and happy, not overstretched and leaving us exhausted before we’ve really begun.

This is why getting all of your commitments out of your head, and out of the stacks and piles of stuff around you, into a list of projects, and into lists of the actions needed to move those projects forward, is essential to having that purposeful, successful and happy life.  If you have those lists, you can review them regularly and know if you are in a sprint or a marathon.  You will know if you need to push hard on something until it is done, even if that means you’ll be exhausted at the end of it, or if you need to spread your effort out in order to be in it for the long haul.

Without lists of all of our commitments, we cannot know what is appropriate.