He glanced at me and said, with no small hint of pride, “I’m a Productivity Evangelist.”

I’ll admit it. I almost laughed. I had to bite my lip so as not to spit out my wine.

In spite of the New Media use of the word “Evangelist” to describe anyone who promotes anything, it’s still a word I associate with, well, evangelists. I could see him clad in white robe and sandals marching along city sidewalks carrying a sign painted with the words, “Get More Done.”

So, here’s something I want you to know about me:

I’m not a Productivity Evangelist.

In fact, I’d like you to think about your To-Do List in a whole new light. Not just as a chronicle of crap to get done.

Think of your To-Do List, instead, as a training ground.

Since many of us have become codependents of drug addicted To-Do lists, then this idea may sound a little unproductive. But hear me out.

Your To-Do List can serve two purposes. The first purpose is to guide your actions. The second purpose also happens to be step #2 in the 12-Steps to a Recovered To-Do List. (Step 1 was in the last post.)

To-Do List Recovery Step #2: Make your list a training ground for success

Many of us literally spend our days failing as we try to keep up with an external idea of “productivity.” Even when we do complete every item on our list, we rarely feel satisfied. There’s always more to do.

When your To-Do List becomes a place where you train yourself how to win, you build momentum, rather than always trying to keep up. You train yourself to succeed by asking yourself what’s important to you. You train yourself to succeed by asking less of yourself and actually getting items done. You train your brain to get used to the feeling of accomplishment, rather than the habitual feeling of never enough. Amazingly, you’ll discover that you’re actually energized. You’ll even generate a feeling of self-trust, perhaps for the first time.

To-Do List Recovery Step #3: Let your intentions guide your To-Do List

An intention is not the same thing as a To-Do. An intention guides your To-Do’s. Intention is the big picture. (Like, the word you chose for this year.)

When you create a To-Do list, the first thing to remember is your intention. This will help you recognize the items that contribute to that intention, and those that don’t.

To-Do List Recovery Step #4: Start a Sunday evening ritual

Now, this is not a “Light candles and chant the Moolah-Mantra” ritual. This is just 10 minutes to ask yourself one question:

What are my three top priorities this week?

Limit it to three. More than three just creates Attention Splatter.

To-Do List Recovery Step #5: Make a Brain-Drain List

Some of us have Chronologic Depth Perception Illness, or CDPI. (Yes, I made this up.) CDPI means that you think of something to do, and even if it doesn’t need to be dealt with until, say, Christmas of 2010, it remains at the forefront of your brain, along with all of your other To-Do’s. There it is, needing to be done. Now. So, you put it on your To-Do list because you don’t trust that you’ll get it done unless it occupies your mind.

Enter the Brain-Drain List. A Brain-Drain List is where you simply write down every To-Do that comes to mind. From the big stuff (Write an eBook) to the little stuff (get my oil changed). A brain drain list is a place where you can put every last To-Do so you can empty your brain. You will then be able to think more clearly about your priorities.

This brings me to the Three P’s of To-Do List Creation:

To-Do List Recovery Step #6: Prioritize

This is so simple that it’s easy to forget. What is your first priority? What is most important on your list? (Important isn’t always “urgent.”) Ask yourself how important each item is to you. Let go of the ones that don’t matter (i.e., most of them).

To-Do List Recovery Step #7: Parameterize

Parameters put borders around any item that’s vague. (i.e., a writing project, an organizing project, any creative endeavor.) Assign start times and end times. Or set a goal of how much (i.e., 3 pages, 2 drawers, one verse). This way you’ll know when you’re done for the day. Otherwise, you’ll convince yourself that you haven’t done anything.

To-Do List Recovery Step #8: Pay-off

The best question to ask yourself about each To-Do Item is this: If this were the only thing I accomplished today, would I be happy with that? What is the pay-off if I do this?

To-Do List Recovery Step #9: Busyness is laziness

The Benzedrine To-Do List looks quite impressive to its creator. It lends itself to an inflated sense of self-importance. “Look at all I have to do!” This is actually lazy thinking. It covers up the fact that you don’t have the presence to sit still and define the most important (not necessarily the most urgent) things that you want to do.

To-Do List Recovery Step #10: Task it Down

The Electric Kool-Aid Acid To-Do List is a fine list of dreams to have. But the part of you that is not hallucinating needs to know how to start. It needs to break those big jobs into small do-able tasks. This is another great way for your To-Do List to become a training ground. You learn how to take a dream and make it into reality. So, if you want to sell your home, the first thing on the To-Do List would be: “Call three Realtors.” Or, “Clean out the crap in the basement for one hour.”

To-Do List Recovery Step #11: Honor your style

Some people can focus on a task and get it done in 3 hours of straight work. Some need more time to putter before they can start a project. Some people need deadlines to propel them into getting something done. Everyone is different. Honoring your style is important. Not everyone can be a Productivity Evangelist. I, for one, am a big proponent of moodling and taking long quiet walks before any act of focused creativity. Everyone has different styles.

To-Do List Recovery Step #12: Know what matters to you

This post was supposed to be up yesterday.

Know why it wasn’t?

Because instead of writing, I spent the day watching the nest by my front door to see if the baby wrens were going to fly away.

I blew off my To-Do list to watch them. I felt a little guilty and overwhelmed at the end of the day. But in the moment, I was completely present and absorbed. (They flew. It was profound.) This kind of thing matters to me more than New Media and yes, more than Productivity Evangelists.

Knowing what matters to you will guide you on those days when Life Happens. Maybe baby birds are taking flight. Maybe your daughter has a cold. Maybe your best friend is having a hard time and you take her to dinner. And maybe your inner Productivity Evangelist is holding up signs that say, “You’re disappointing us all!”

That’s okay. He’s probably on drugs too.

It’s Monday. You’ve got stuff to do.

Better make your To-Do list.

You make To-Do Lists, don’t you? Do they work for you? Do they give you a sense of accomplishment?

No?

Well, you’re not alone.

Many people’s To-Do lists don’t help them at all. In fact, many people tell themselves that they’re just not capable of Getting Things Done.

Here’s my theory:

It’s not the people.

It’s the list!

Face it. Some lists just go bad. It starts with one hit, and just gets totally outta hand after that. An out of control To-Do list is just gonna bring you down.

Here are the three most common symptoms of To-Do lists under the influence…

1 - This is your To-Do list. This is your To-Do list on speed.

Some To-Do lists are all hopped up on Benzedrine. These are the ones that burn, burn, burn - desirous of everything at the same time.

Hey. Kerouac wrote On the Road in 20 days. So, you can sure get your stuff done in one, right?

Need more than one page for your To-Do’s? Got a color code system you don’t get anymore? Or do you just know you’re never getting all this crap done?

Yea?

Well, then your list is poppin’ Bennies.

And here’s what this might look like:

To-Do List for Today

- Pick up dry cleaning
- Make doctor’s appointment
- Do laundry
- Write 75 thank you notes
- Call Aunt Jean re vacation
- Book vacation
- Get kitty litter
- Write project outline
- Plant bulbs
- Call plumber
- Send off 3 proposals
- Interview VA’s
- Take dog to groomer
- Clean house
- Buy birdseed
- Do yoga
- Answer emails
- Get groceries
- Get manicure
- Send out invitations
- Meditate
- Order books from amazon
- Learn google analytics
- Meet with realtor
- Call mom
- Book flight to Anaheim
- Listen to podcasts
- Mow the lawn
- Get oil changed
- Vote!
- Research outsourcing
- Write eBook
- Rotate tires
- Upload photos to Flickr

In fact, you don’t even have time to read this post. You gotta go gotta go gotta go and never stop going till you get there.

“Where we going, man?”

“I don’t know but we gotta go!”

2 - The Cheech and Chong To-Do list

Maybe your list isn’t into all that rapid fire motion, man. It doesn’t get it, man. Why not relax a little? Your list is gonna get there. Someday. It’s just a list, man.

There’s some things, yea. Priorities? Huh? No, man. Just things.

What things?

Well, like, uh…

Blog! I gotta figure out the blog thing! Yea, I hear some people are gettin’ rich on that sh**. So, that’s on there.

And I guess I gotta go through that in-box at some point. That’d be good to do.

Yea.

Um.

Bills! Gotta pay the bills. Here’s the list…

- In-box
- Blog
- Bills
- Store
- Job

If your To-Do list has a thing for cheeba, most likely there’s not a lot of attention to detail, or how long something could take, or why it matters, or what comes first, or who even cares. It’s all just there. Sitting there. Waiting to be done. Getting the munchies. Dude.

3 - The Electric Kool-Aid Acid To-Do List

This is the list where nothing gets crossed out.

After all, why would you want to put a line through anything and ruin it like that? It’s all beautiful. Cross marks through words? That’s just, well, not beautiful. Big things are beautiful. Dreams are beautiful. Ideas are beautiful.

Why break it all down into small steps? I mean, the word “break” is just so not about peace and love! You can’t worry about how to proceed. You just gotta have a vision. Hey… You’re either on the bus…or off the bus.

This to-do list looks like this:

- Sell house
- Move to remote island
- Write novel

Great ideas. Big plans. Beautiful dreams. This is the list that eventually gets you to singing…” Woh-oh, what I want to know, where does the time go?”

——————————

Remember…

Admitting that your list has a problem is the first step towards Getting Things Done.

Wanna know the other eleven?

Stay tuned!

I’ve got a MySpace page.

I’m on Facebook. (Just barely. There seem to be fish in my aquarium and plants in my terrarium. And I have no idea how they got there.)

Now, I’m on Twitter.

And I’m curious to hear from you. How, if at all, do you use Twitter?

I’ve been using it to pretend that my Followers are my Song Coaches. I tell them when I go write songs for my next CD. Then, I tell them when I return from my songwriting session. They hold me accountable. (At least I pretend they do. They’re probably too busy trying to figure out Facebook to pay attention.)

But as for being connected all the time to Twitter -

I can imagine no greater distraction from creative focus. (That’s just me. I need complete disconnection from the internet when I write songs.)

Seth Godin aptly called it Noise Creep.

What about you? Twitter? (Or Facebook? Or Squidoo? Hub Pages? Forums?) How do you use them?

Here’s why I ask:

During the blog conference this past weekend - as each speaker was doing their thing - the people at the tables were Tweeting about the conference. They were Tweeting each other, and all their Followers who weren’t at the conference. Opinions, descriptions, snippets in rapid fire during each presentation.

I whispered to someone “Twitter is the opposite of Eckhart Tolle.” She looked at me like I was nuts.

Maybe I am?

In her incredible new book, Steering by Starlight, Martha Beck writes about a mantra she made up…

“Just this.”

I’ve been saying “Just this” to myself for several weeks.

I say it when I wake up in the morning to my dog’s thumping tail. I say it when the sun starts rising. I say it while I’m slicing vegetables for the dinner salad. I say it when there’s a large choir of the “I’m not enough’s” or the “I messed up again’s” singing rounds in my head.

This weekend I said it to myself throughout the Successful and Outstanding Blogger conference. (I performed on Friday night and participated all day Saturday.)

I know. I know. Conferences are not for this woo-woo stuff. Conferences are where I should be handing out my business card (don’t have one), networking (not my favorite word) and taking notes (I prefer pen and Moleskine).

The only problem is this: when I get too much into that Conference mindset, I forget that other human beings are present. Conference Mindset makes me become more about getting things than about being at the conference. Conference Mindset makes some people “important” and some people “not so much.” (I’ve showcased at a few big music conferences, where most people look at your name tag before they decide whether or not to look at you. Watching someone who is “important” step onto an elevator of people who “aren’t” is priceless.)

Not everyone looks at it this way, I know. But most people would agree that it’s easy to go to a conference and lose the moment completely.

So, throughout this weekend, I put it to the test. I reminded myself to be at the conference with the other people by reminding myself:

“Just this.”

When I could do this, (and admittedly, sometimes I couldn’t) I felt like I experienced the conference. I experienced each person I met. I experienced the speakers. I really saw each person I talked with.

Now, let me be clear. I didn’t get weird or anything. I didn’t look at anyone and say, “I’m experiencing you now.” This would’ve caused mass chaos. “Help! There’s someone from Asheville over there! Grab your laptop and run away!”

You can keep your “Just this” in your own head. No one has to know you’re doing it.

Try it this week. Twitter it. It’s a great little mantra.

p.s. If you decide to get Steering by Starlight, I highly recommend that you click on the Audible.com link in the left sidebar and get the audio version. It’s worth it just to hear Martha Beck read about Cookie the beagle.

Now, I’m a big fan of clear communication, correcting mistakes, and apologizing in situations when you’ve messed up. That’s the first place to start.

And if you’re a reader of this blog, then you know I regularly refer to the Law of Attraction and similar approaches to daily life.

After that, three thoughts come to mind:

The first thought is about Wonder Woman.

It’s oh-so tempting to think that because you’re a “conscious” person, or because you understand Law of Attraction, that you now have to slog through every negative situation in your life in order to figure out how you “attracted it” and how you might “heal from it.”

I call this Superhero Thinking.

We’re certain that we could transform any situation if we could only use our powers of thought in the perfect and right ways.

Sometimes, however, this isn’t the best choice. Often, it makes us stay in bad relationships, draining friendships, and hurtful jobs to prove that we are able to leap tall negativity in a single bound.

It will benefit you, your dog, your children, your friends and the entire planet if you get over this as quickly as possible.

I spent two years talking with business coaches and reading management books trying to change myself so that I could deal with an abusive employee. At first, she was a star in my office. But as time wore on, she became angry and lashed out when she didn’t like the decisions I was making about my music career. It was painful. And I tried hard to make it work because, after all, I knew about these spiritual principles.

Finally, I did the wisest and most conscious thing I could do.

I fired her.

We may think we have super powers and that if we could just get healthy enough then we can transform a negative situation — but sometimes the best answer is to take off the orange cape and mask and simply let go.

The second thought is about fear.

Often, the real issue is not about what we’ve attracted. The real issue is why we won’t let it go. The real issue is that we’re scared. We think we need this client, this employee, this boyfriend, this job, this gig.

We think these external things are the source. The source of our money. The source of our joy. The source of our productivity. So, we become attached to them.

That’s when things get wonky.

We convince ourselves it’s about changing our thoughts and working with the negativity we’ve attracted. But really, it’s about addressing our fear of lack and our misguided attachment to something outside of us.

The third thought is about water-skiing.

When I started water-skiing, I’d get my balance and then immediately lurch forward, slamming face-first onto the lake. Then, in spite of all the water-skiing wisdom anyone had ever offered, I’d hold onto the handle for dear life as the boat dragged me several hundred feet across the lake on my stomach.

Now, the problem was not that I attracted bad experiences as I learned to water ski. The problem wasn’t that the boat was mean to me, or that the lake was evil, forcing me to swallow much of its contents.

The problem was that I wouldn’t let go of the handle.

It’s the same thing in life. Sometimes you have to stop asking how you could possibly attract this and recognize that you’re the one holding onto it.

I perform a very casual intimate unplugged concert on the second night of the retreat, and then I open the “stage” for the women to read poems, share works of art, or perform songs. A few brave souls will step up each time. Sue read this poem of hers that night, and I asked her if I could reprint it on my blog.

Here’s to Spring and the wild celebration of new life out in the woods!

Sprout
by Sue Ludwig

I am in search of my life.
Not the one I was dealt,
but the one I want to have.

Not the one
repeatedly stomped into the ground
popping up
where I least expect it,

But the one where
I wake up each day
excited to be on a path
blooming with
maybe nothing I expected
but everything I wished for.

I have been tending to the hard work.
I have unearthed and tilled
and reseeded the dead areas.

I am beginning to see sprouts.
Little glowing green life
pushing against gravity,
weight of earth
to find light.

They are in search of their life.
They know more than I
how to shed the confines
of the seed,
thank it for its lesson,
and grow.

The gift of practicing art is that it teaches the creator how to create, and how to be a creator. Over and over again, the artist learns the process of making things - including the obstacles that arise, the futility of forcing the flow, and the joy of allowing inspiration. This practice has been nothing less than revolutionary in my own life.

That’s because I grew up learning more about Getting than I did about Creating. And I’m not alone in that. Most of the life lessons we’ve all learned are about Getting.

We gotta get rich, get approved, get things from people, get a job, get a life, get laid, get publicity, get someone to do something, get approval, get high, get married, get a loan, get good grades, get a clue, get into college, get up, get down, get out.

Get it?

Getting is an epidemic. It makes us grab at life. It takes us out of the present moment. It makes us powerless. It forces us to manipulate our own spirits so that we can manipulate the situation. Getting requires that we use our precious creative power to get, rather than to use it for its primary purpose, which is to Create. When we misue this power, we become contorted. We block the flow. The focus is on “out there” rather than “in here.”

When we become Creators, we turn the whole thing around. Everything becomes an inside job. We experience true power. We create our lives.

One of the people in my six-week e-Seminar set her intention for wealth and money during the first week. She is now going through a huge awakening about her relationship to money and to her father. She realizes that her dad has been her source of money, and so she has spent most of her life looking to him, resenting him, and playing games with him to get her money. She never learned that there was any other way to do it.

As a beginning step, I asked her to imagine what it would feel like if she knew she could create her own money and generate prosperity for herself. I asked her what it would feel like to not need her dad’s money.

It was the first time she’d ever explored that possibility. She said it would be amazing and liberating. It would allow her to have a relationship with her dad on her own terms.

Stepping out of the mindset of Getting and into the mindset of Creating heals relationships. It will also heal your life. When you don’t need to Get things from other people (including your happiness), then you can allow them to be who they are and make their own choices. You can request things, of course. But the energy of this is very different from trying to Get something.

Think of one thing that you’ve been trying to get. What it would feel like to become a creator instead? How would your actions be different?

I love hearing about people’s very first concert. In any given room, the answers can range from Rick Springfield to Poison to the Backstreet Boys to Pat Benatar.

My first concert was Michael Jackson. My older sister drove me and my best friend to the Capital Centre in Washington D.C. to see him. I remember so much about that night, it’s a little strange. I filled many pages in my diary the next day.

What was yours?

So many blogs about writing.

So much advice about writing.

So much about the craft of writing, marketing with writing, and how to sell your latest eThing through writing.

And so little about the joy of writing. Writing to write. Not to sell, woo, seduce, hypnotize, or get more subscribers to your blog. Just pure writing.

“What’s the point of that?” you might ask.

And it’s a good question.

Let’s face it. Most people want a good answer before they’ll invest. (Translation: An answer that will make money, make them more important, or give them power over something.) For those people, I don’t have the good answer. Because the process of writing daily, preferably with pen and paper, is the answer. It’s an end in and of itself.

(I know. I know. Most people aren’t too fond of those “rewards unto themselves” kinds of things either.)

I’ve been filling up spiral notebooks and journals since I was twelve. I believe that this practice gave me a jump start when I began writing songs. Now, it comes in handy when I write blogs or my e-Seminar or anything else. It’s like breathing to me. It just is. I just write.

In case you still don’t believe me, here are 11 other reasons to write everyday…

1 - Writing creates order

If you’re at all like me, then your thoughts can race. And they can multiply. And then they can race some more. And multiply some more. They become unruly crowds. I call this “brain clutter.” My friend James calls it “The United Nations.”

Then you sit down to write. Your hand can only write one word at a time, one sentence at a time. And your thoughts are forced to get in a line, wind around the velvet ropes, and wait their turn. No one has to shout at them. Writing lets them know that they will all eventually be heard. And the unimportant ones (e.g., most of them) will shuffle away. Writing creates order and helps you hear yourself think.

2 - Writing erases perfectionism

Nothing keeps us stuck like perfectionism. Many people won’t even begin something because they’re so paralyzed by having to “make the perfect choice,” or “buy the perfect gift” or “write the perfect song.”

When you write everyday, you soon learn that perfectionism is pretty funny. Word by word, you teach yourself that there’s no such thing as perfect. And you learn that how deeply you participate in the creating of something has much more effect on the outcome than does the disconnected idea of “perfect.” Perfect implies an event. Writing teaches us that there are no events, and that everything is a process.

3 - Writing connects your hands and your heart

Your hands are physically connected to your heart. Writing solidifies this connection. It’s mechanical.

I meet a lot of people who have forgotten what they want. They forgot what delights them. They’ve lost the connection to their heart. I encourage them to write. Writing teaches your heart to speak through your hands.

4 - Writing falls you in love with your life

As I write this, I’m sitting on my sofa in front of a flower arrangement made for me by my neighbor. It is wilting. My dog is sitting under the bird feeder on the deck chewing loudly and neurotically on sunflower seed hulls. I notice these things when I write.

When you write, you claim this moment. You claim your life. You fall deeper in love with it. It is all there to be inhaled by your pen.

5 - Writing revises your world

You can also re-write your world. You can tell a whole different story. There’s an exercise called “Scripting” that some people do every day. They write their ideal lives in present tense, as if it were already so. You can revise your world with your powerful imagination. This is how many children survive their childhoods.

6 - Writing engages the five senses

The smell of paper. The scritchy scrape-y sound of a pen on paper. The touch of the notebook page after a good fine-point pen has created a Braille-like indentation on it. The unmistakable loopiness of your handwriting. It’s all there. No amount of on-line marketing can give you that.

7 - Writing builds self-esteem

Brenda Ueland wrote:

“For when you come to think of it, the only way to love a person is… by listening to them and seeing and believing in the god, in the poet in them. For by doing this, you keep the god and the poet alive and make it flourish.”

When you write, you listen to yourself. When you write, you love yourself. When you write, you keep the god and poet alive. This alone will center you, strengthen you, and give you something to look forward to each day: a date with your own strong centered voice. She will begin to show up more and more throughout your day, too.

8 - Writing makes you friends with uncertainty

Let’s face it. Some days writing is choppy and heavy. It’s like roller-skating on gravel. You’ll have no idea why you’re even doing it or where it’s taking you. Some days the blank page talks back at you. Some days nothing comes at all. But you keep writing and showing up because you learn that uncertainty is not the enemy. You know that you’ll write your way through to clarity. Most people avoid uncertainty like the plague. Writing teaches you to befriend it.

9 - Writing finds your voice

When you write every day, you learn your voice. You learn your rhythm. (Even if it takes re-writing the word “rhythm” three times before you get the spelling right.) I think so many people love Twitter and texting and blogging is that they these are safe arenas where they can find their voices and delight in that process. Finding your voice is an unfolding. Your voice comes out when it starts to feel safe, when it’s allowed to just write.

10 - Writing container-fies you

When you write daily, you “container-fy” yourself. That is, you become a container. You set yourself up to notice everything. You keenly observe, you take things in, and you see the world through artist’s eyes. Your subconscious takes note. Everything is raw material. And surprising things begin to happen when you become more than just a lowly soul plodding off to work each day.

11 - Writing teaches you that this is it.

There’s no there to get to. There’s no destination. This is the bad news for the people who want to get things. It’s the good news for people who want to get it. This is it. Start where you are. Take pen in hand and write your world.

tags : writing, creative writing, creativity, blog, blogging, music, christine kane

I’m going to one (and only one!) blogging conference in 2008. Here’s why this is it…

1 - I had a great time last year.

Liz Strauss and Terry Starbucker are the coordinators of SOBCon. My theory is that the promoters of any event attract audiences that are in alignment with their hearts and souls.

So, at SOBCon, the participants are authentic, intelligent, funny, amazing people. (Like Terry and Liz!) It’s small enough that you get a chance to really learn stuff, connect with other people, and actually ask questions. And it’s big enough that you can sit back and just absorb it all, too.

2 - Connecting on the web is one thing…

…meeting people in person is just an entirely different experience.

3 - I enjoy being a nerd.

Many of the people at blogging conferences have two lives. They’ve got their day-to-day natural habitat (offices, cubicles, retail outlets, art studios, etc). And then they have their blogging world - where they get jazzed about things that no one else they know gets jazzed about. I am no exception. At SOBCon, our inner (or not so inner) nerds get to come forth and shine. I love this.

4 - Who doesn’t need a little help in their business?

“Biz School for Bloggers” is a great theme. When I go to songwriting events, there’s always some music manager or agent offering a “bootcamp” about the music business. He drones on about the usual stuff - - which, conveniently, puts him at the top of the artist food chain. Press kits and agents and CD’s and on and on (and yawn and yawn).

Musicians and artists (and life coaches and healers and anyone who’s self-employed) need the perspective that this kind of conference offers. Why? Because it’s exciting. There is no food chain. It’s a whole new model. And it wakes up your brain. (Yes, the very brain that was put to sleep by the music manager at that last songwriting event you attended.)

5 - SOBCon is in downtown Chicago in May…

…and who can resist the experience of an 8 degree Wind Chill Factor in the springtime?

tags: SOBCon08, Liz Strauss, Terry Starbucker, blog, blog conference, christine kane