How to Accomplish Your Commitments
You’ll be Getting Things Done when you tie your TO DOs to your commitments.
Getting Things Done by David Allen is probably the best book in the world about how to organize your entire life. When I use his system, life is wonderful. Of course, it does no good to be organized unless you’re organized around the right things. And those things are your commitments.
The quick and dirty tip is to monitor your actions to uncover your real commitments. Then make changes as necessary.
Signs of Commitment
My family has always believed in following through on our promises. It was all about integrity. Commitment was our highest accomplishment. In fact, my parents used to provide encouragement. They would say, “Stever, we think you should be committed.” I was so proud!
A commitment is something you’re dedicated to. It’s a pledge; you make it a priority. My friend “John” (not his real name) was talking before he got married: “This whole marriage thing is pretty exciting. We’re making a commitment to be together for life! And if it turns out we’re not compatible, we can always get a divorce.” That’s my kind of commitment! All the intensity of commitment, combined with the flexibility of convenience.
Commitment matters. Your commitments are where you put your energy and creativity. Most importantly, your commitments are where you put your life! Your behavior shows your commitments. When I adopted the “Getting Things Done” system, you could tell. I spent a whole week running around my office processing, collecting, reviewing, and filing. It wasn’t just talk; you could see it in action.
If, however, I head in to the office in the morning, open a web browser, and proceed to read fifteen political sites, four daily comic strips, and a tutorial in resurfacing parking lots, then these are my commitments. You’ll notice the conspicuous absence of anything like, say, doing actual work.
Identifying Your Commitments
This is common. Try an experiment. Right now, think of your top five priorities in life, the things you consider your top five commitments. I’ll give you a few seconds. Pause the podcast if you need more time. Ready? Go…
(5 second pause)
Great. Now, think of your schedule today, and the top five ways you plan to use your time. Here’s another five seconds.
(5 second pause)
Got that? Great. Now … The lists were the same, right? If you’re like most people, you’re lucky to have a single item of overlap. Here’s the sad news: your real commitments are the ones on your “to do” list, not the ones on your priority list. That list tells you what you’ll get to regret not doing in 40 years unless you change how you use your time.
There are a couple of reasons this happens. First, we don’t even know what we want our life to be about. Maybe we had career dreams as a kid (I always wanted to be the guy who drove the ice cream truck. Talk about fringe benefits…Yum!), but we need to revise them as we get older. As an adult, I met the guy who drives the ice cream truck. I don’t want to be him any more; he has tattoos in scary places.
Right now, block out a full day on your calendar. Plan to spend that day reviewing your life and consciously choosing what you want your life to be about. I’d make it a repeating appointment, at least yearly, if not twice a year.
Lost in the How
Another reason our actions don’t match our commitments is that we get lost in the HOW. While some people consider it very enlightened to get lost in the NOW, getting lost in the HOW isn’t as much fun. What happens is that we have a long-term commitment like, “Have a satisfying and meaningful family life.” We decide we’ll get there by working really hard so we can retire early and spend all our time with our family. The “HOW” is working hard. Then we get so caught up working hard that by the time we remember we have a family, the kids already have their tenth piercings, our spouse has run off to live in a commune in a New Mexico ghost town, and the family dog has died of old age. Not a pretty picture.
When you review today’s to-do items, ask yourself which big commitments each item belongs to. When you can find a link, keep the item. When you can’t find a link, toss the item. Here are two real items from my list today: “make backup snapshot of hard drive” and “write Get-it-Done Guy episode.”
No matter how hard I try, I can’t connect “make backup snapshot of hard drive” with any larger commitment. I can’t even say it’s protecting against a computer crash, since my hard drive already gets backed up to the Internet each night. It’s just an obsessive-compulsive holdover from my days as a computer-obsessed teenager, when my hard drive was the only one who would talk to me. I’m over it; that item gets tossed from the list. Besides, my router talks to me now, too.
“Write Get-it-Done Guy episode” relates directly to my bigger commitments. I want to help lots of people be happier, and I want to do it through a media platform. Think Tyra Banks but male. And not a fashion model. And … never mind. The Get-it-Done Guy podcast is my first platform. That stays on the list.
Align To-Dos With Commitments
It’s that simple to align to-dos with commitments. The neat thing is that the alignment also taps into motivation. It reminds my why I’m doing what I’m doing, and if my highest commitments relate to my passion, voila, I’ve connected my passion to my to-dos. If a truck hits me tomorrow, I’ll go to my resting place knowing my life was on the right path. That knowledge will be so satisfying, I almost won’t mind having tire tracks across my forehead for the rest of eternity.
You can find a full interview with David Allen, creator of Getting Things Done, right here.
For a Quick Tip on multitasking, Learn how to make multitasking easy.
This is Stever Robbins. If you have a question about how to Work Less and Do More, e-mail getitdone@quickanddirtytips.comcreate new email or leave voicemail at 866-WRK-LESS.
Work Less, Do More, and have a Great Life!
RESOURCES:
- Episode about refocusing on your goals
- Episode about connecting with your passion
- Interview with David Allen
Businesswoman image courtesy of Shutterstock
About the Author
Stever Robbins was the host of the podcast Get-it-Done Guy from 2007 to 2019. He is a graduate of W. Edward Deming’s Total Quality Management training program and a Certified Master Trainer Elite of NLP. He holds an MBA from the Harvard Business School and a BS in Computer Sciences from MIT.
