Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

My technique for accomplishing a lot of tasks in a day or any arbitrary period of time.

It was more than 30 years ago, (yes, I am that old), I was someplace a long ways from here. I was standing at the entrance to a storeroom. Metal shelves lined the walls of the storeroom. The shelves were empty; the floor was full of stuff. (I didn’t ask why the room was arranged opposite of what it should be.)

My task: clean and organize the storeroom.

1. I lifted one thing from the floor and put it on a shelf.
2. I lifted another thing from the floor and put it on a shelf.

I repeated the above steps until the floor was clear. I looked at my watch – one hour had expired. One hour?!? That was supposed to be a three-day job.

In the years since that day, I have cleaned and organized several storerooms.

In the years since that day, I have written half a dozen books, over a hundred articles, and about 70 short stories. Funny, I use the same procedure for all of the above.

Here is my secret for accomplishing tasks:

1. Make a list of tasks to do.
2. Do the first task.
3. Do the next task.
4. Repeat until all tasks on the list are accomplished.

That is it. It seems like there should be more to it than that. I mean, there should be something in there about priorities and life goals and such, stuff that sounds important and significant. Sorry. That is all I have.

One thing I have observed in many people who have tasks to accomplish, but never accomplish them.

People often spend more time talking about their tasks than it takes to accomplish them.