From To-Do list to Tah-Done.
I love being organized. Well, I don't personally think I am but I appear to be. I'm actually quite a forgetful character, a scatter brain who struggles with distinguishing priorities and drops details more often than she can remember.
I love to get things done-that I know for sure-but it isn't something that is easy to do. In order to do something you have to be persistent; you have to desire something so badly that you will find out how to do it, how to do it well, and fight off discouraging set-backs and remarks. Constantly. Not everybody can do this. Not everybody will be successful.
I've always LOVED To-Do lists because of how useful they are for my forgetfulness! I make them all the time. I get excited about something new and it to the list. I cross out old tasks and-what were these things?-leave question marks to recall details for other tasks.
After some time the lists I make look rather beat up. Smudge marks and crinkles, a corner torn off and a random address in the other. Sometimes I need more than one paper to continue a list and abandoned ones always show up later. I'm pleased when I can cross out everything on really old ones, and I make a point to combine lists and rewrite lists, but as I do the list grows, and grows, and starts to look less exciting.
Finally I put everything online, all my papers, all my notes, and most importantly, my To-Do lists. Saves a lot of paper and headache, but as life goes on, now when I cross something out two more tasks appear and the whole idea of a list has lost its urgency. I've found myself ignoring the master list for the most part.
Relying on my memory alone is a disaster and my anxiety turns blind when I can't remember details and priorities. Looking at this digital document I find it clumsy and overwhelming, but with a list that is bigger than my hands, something with too many details and deadlines, it is no longer effective. Easy to get lost, overwhelmed, and disoriented, difficult to focus on priorities and discern from leisurely activities.
In my most unproductive and anxious hours I finally found SuperBetter, a more engaging way to accomplish big goals by turning tasks into quests, inspiration into power-ups and setbacks into bad guys you can defeat. With a universal goal of 3 daily tasks and constant encouragement (from yourself and others!), I'm learning how to create a more friendly and comprehensive To-Do list.
My first ultimate goal is to win scholarships. I start with an old list of scholarship search engines (a list of scholarships would be impossible). I create quests, one to use the search engines, one to list scholarships relevant to me, complete with details about deadlines and requirements, one to create a professional work portfolio, one to use this portfolio to apply for scholarships, and one to do monthly check-ups on applications. Instead of, 'Find scholarships' scribbled on a piece of paper and tons of hours spent towards questionable progress, I can relieve some anxiety because the process is outlined aesthetically for me, and it is easy to see how I have progressed since day one. Once all the Quests, Power-Ups and Bad Guys are set up, all I have to do is persistently knock out these Quests.
I've nearly figured out how to use SuperBetter to transform the To-Do list of a person with too-many-goals-to-adequately-outline-on-paper into a useful tool for categorizing tasks and nesting details. I've learned how to control anxiety by realistically focusing on a minimum accomplishment, and better measure time with deadlines turned into count downs. Discovering this site feels like a major step forward in my organizational skills because now I have goals whose task details I can digest and whose three daily Quests I don't want to miss!