The List

Happy Cinco de Mayo to all of our Monday Huddle Up followers! This day is pretty much a holiday in my hometown, so a quick shout out to my people in Tucson. Enjoy today and be safe out there. Now to this week’s edition….

After 16 years in one house we are preparing for a move. In sifting through my home office to figure out what should get tossed and what should come along, I found it.

The list.

I’m not sure when it was crafted or what prompted me to write it. I was probably reading some book about life that said, “You need to write down all the things you need to do before you die” or something similar.

So there it was. 25 items. Documented for eternity.

Given some of the things on the list, I could somewhat sort out when it was concocted. Run a marathon. Check, 2006. Attend a World Series game. 2007 with dad, done. Write a book. Got it, 2014. Given the data the list provides, it was probably written in 1999 or 2000. Man, 25 years is a long time for this to marinate.

All in all, without looking at this document for several years, I accidentally achieved seven of the 25 items. At age 56 now, some of them are probably out of reach. However, a few are primed to get checked off soon. That part is somewhat exciting.

You may ask, “Why do I care about a decades old list that suddenly surfaced in Schmieder’s office?” Good question. Here are a few thoughts…..

Knowing what I know now, if I were to make a list like this again, it would be nowhere near this long. Three key goals would be it. Conquer those, then move on to a new list, but not before.

With all the time I’ve probably wasted doing meaningless things over the years, I bet if I’d had the list visible, I bet I could’ve completed nearly all of them.

The list has no time stamps on it. So there really wasn’t any urgency to do any of the things that were on it. As the old saying goes, what gets measured gets done, and putting deadlines on tasks is one way to “measure” success.

So from an organizational perspective…..

Shorten the list of goals. Have an intentional focus on the objectives. Put a deadline on each of them.

Do those three things and there is a far greater chance of success.

Have a great week!