As a slave of The List, I’ve spent too many days immobilized by anxiety. The List itself is partly an artifact of my old days in Autopilot Development, and partly the Blueprint for Perfection. Add in the subversion of my misfiring brain chemistry, and it moves from the “tool” column into the “weapon” category.
Populated as it is by everything from brushing my teeth to invoicing clients, The List can be formidable even on the good days. On the marginal days, it’s an efficient self-torture device. On the bad days, it’s a mixed blessing. It adds to the misery, but it’s also likely enough to trip the “shutdown” failsafe, and immobilize me.
Populated as it is by everything from brushing my teeth to invoicing clients, The List can be formidable even on the good days. On the marginal days, it’s an efficient self-torture device. On the bad days, it’s a mixed blessing. It adds to the misery, but it’s also likely enough to trip the “shutdown” failsafe, and immobilize me.
The Program’s gift to me for dealing with The List was the slogan:
Do the Next Thing
Not The List.
Not everything on The List.
Just the next thing.
I can gauge how well I’m coping by the size of the next thing. Sometimes the next thing is a whole task, a complete process, an achieved goal.
And sometimes it’s a step that is part of a task, the next stage of a process, an objective on the way to an achievement.
Either way, doing the next thing allows me to put The List on hold, relegate it to the background, restore it to its function as a tool. To de-weaponize it.
Using Step One, I give over my assumptions about what I “can” or (worse) “should” be able to check off The List in a given day. That alone can be enough to take the weapon out of my hand, and keep me from blasting myself with all that I did not get done.
Because a “normal” person should easily be able to accomplish items one through fifteen, right? A self-disciplined, adequate, motivated, effective person, knowing that those fifteen items really need to be accomplished today, will stay focused, not allow distraction or weakness to get in the way of checking off every item.
Using Step Four, I quickly note the specific self-defeating character flaws revealed by that assumption: Hey, look! It’s Perfect Me™ again! Down, bitch. Omniscience is for my Higher Power, which knows exactly what needs to be accomplished today and will see that it’s done, whether I agree with that priority or not.
My job is to do the next thing.
Do the Next Thing
Not The List.
Not everything on The List.
Just the next thing.
I can gauge how well I’m coping by the size of the next thing. Sometimes the next thing is a whole task, a complete process, an achieved goal.
And sometimes it’s a step that is part of a task, the next stage of a process, an objective on the way to an achievement.
Either way, doing the next thing allows me to put The List on hold, relegate it to the background, restore it to its function as a tool. To de-weaponize it.
Using Step One, I give over my assumptions about what I “can” or (worse) “should” be able to check off The List in a given day. That alone can be enough to take the weapon out of my hand, and keep me from blasting myself with all that I did not get done.
Because a “normal” person should easily be able to accomplish items one through fifteen, right? A self-disciplined, adequate, motivated, effective person, knowing that those fifteen items really need to be accomplished today, will stay focused, not allow distraction or weakness to get in the way of checking off every item.
Using Step Four, I quickly note the specific self-defeating character flaws revealed by that assumption: Hey, look! It’s Perfect Me™ again! Down, bitch. Omniscience is for my Higher Power, which knows exactly what needs to be accomplished today and will see that it’s done, whether I agree with that priority or not.
My job is to do the next thing.