I’ve spent very little time in my task manager this week. It’s not that I didn’t have things to do – this thing you’re reading is one of those things, actually – but because I knew what I was going to have to do during my time away I had the ability to simply do it and keep everything else at bay.
Make no mistake, I now have more stuff to do – stuff that is going to be hitting my task mangement app’s inbox in short order – but that stuff has been able to wait for me to be ready to process it. Why?
Because I didn’t just prepare myself for this time away, but I prepared others as well.
I set up quick email responses through TextExpander snippets. I sent tweets that clearly communicated that I was living in the moments rather than interested in reporting them. I wasn’t isolated, but I wasn’t always available either.
When you know what’s up next, it’s freeing. There’s a freedom in knowing that is unlike any other. It puts you in a position to be great at whatever you’re doing at any given moment because knowing fosters confidence.
The only thing that can give you the freedom of knowing is trust. Trust in your system (whether that’s an app, a series of apps, or pen and paper), and trust that you’re connected to your system when you need to be. Through that trust, you’ll not only get the freedom of knowing that what you’re doing is the right thing to be doing, but you’ll be able to disconnect from that system – and connect with yourself – a hell of a lot more.
