I know at first glance, the title may raise a few eyebrows. For the context of this article, I’m not saying it’s a good sign when you have a lot of things to do in your life to the point where you get overstressed and overwhelmed by all of them. That’s probably a bad sign. For example, you might’ve probably said yes to a lot of favors from friends, family, co workers, acquaintances, etc., to the point where you’re stretching yourself too thin to make them all happy.
The context in which I’m speaking of applies to achieving your major goal. Having a lot of things to do when it comes to achieving your major goal is a good sign because it shows that you’ve been planning, brainstorming, thinking of ideas, writing them down when they hit you, taking action on them, etc. For example, on any given day, I can probably add 5 more things I need to do that just popped into my head that’ll help me achieve my goals. Then when I actually get to doing these things, that in turn leads to other things I realize I need to do and new ideas begin to take form as well.
You see, when you have a lot of things to do, it’s evident that you’re actually thinking about your goal and trying to achieve it and I know, I know that sounds like the most obvious point in the world, but a lot of people don’t seem to realize this. Why can I say that?
Because there are still a ton of people out there who don’t value their time. The statistics are horrendous. Watching TV 3-4 hours a day, playing computer games such as World of Warcraft to the point where it’s affecting your real life (just read that on yahoo recently), surfing the net for hours on end, it’s ridiculous. It really is. I’m not saying that watching TV or playing games or surfing the net is bad, but when it gets to the point where you’re spending a ridiculous amount of time on it, it becomes pretty clear that you don’t have a lot of things to do.
When you have a ton of things to do in order to accomplish your major goal, you truly understand the value of your time. That show you watch on TV doesn’t seem so important now. Playing that computer game seems so trivial. Surfing the net doesn’t seem so addicting anymore and once you get going and take action on your goal and in turn realize all the things you have to do, you begin to realize how much time you spent wasting and it truly begins to disgust you. People who have a lot of things to do understand the value of their time and they try to minimize any time they spend that’s not productive because time is the one and only resource that levels the playing field. Nobody gets more than 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.
Another benefit from having a lot of things to do is that it forces you to prioritize. You may not be good at it in the beginning, but soon you’ll get a feel of what needs to be done and that’ll make you become more decisive. You’ll look at your list of things to do and know right off the bat what needs to be done.
When it actually comes time to doing it, that in turn forces you to learn time management. You have this huge pile of things to do and you’re trying to find out how to deal with it and that in turn makes you seek out the knowledge on how to do it. I think that’s one of the reasons why the GTD phenomenon has spread so quickly because people have realized they need to get a ton of things done, but they have no system on how to get it all done.
Another important point to make note of is that if you find yourself not having much to do when it comes to achieving your major goal, it may be a symptom of a deeper problem, maybe that of loss of ambition or disbelief that you can actually achieve it.
When you lose your ambition, you forgot why you were trying to achieve that goal in the first place and it happens to a lot of people. There was usually a triggering mechanism that got them started, but their desire waned with time. Discover your why again. Why are you trying to achieve your goal? What was your original purpose? What made you want to take action on it in the first place?
Belief precedes action. If you don’t believe you can do it, you probably won’t want to work on your goal. This happens to a lot of people who try to think big. Lower your goal to make it believable and that in turn will help you think of what you need to do iin order to achieve that believable goal.
If you find yourself not having much to do, then it’s probably a sign that you’re not taking enough action or that you’ve lost your drive or you don’t believe you can achieve your goal.
When you have a lot of things to do, it’s evident that you’ve been making progress because the more things you get done, the more things you realize you need to do. This forces you to learn all about time management which makes you more efficient, which makes you get more things done and the cycle loops itself and once you see all this, you realize just how valuable your time really is and understand why people are always wishing they had more of it. I’ve yet to meet anybody who doesn’t wish they had more time to get the things they need done in order to achieve their major goals.
If you’re busy, it’s a good sign. If not, it’s time to get busy.
