Rethinking My "To Do" List

I recently heard a speaker talk about the word wonder. Not like passive wonder, describing reaction to an amazing sunset. Wonder the verb, meaning to desire or be curious about something. And wonder’s opposites – apathy and indifference.

It’s important that we understand the role wonder plays in our everyday lives, as well as what apathy and indifference do to our ability to accomplish things.

I think you can agree we all have multiple jobs to do. We have our work job, where encounter daily and weekly routines and responsibilities to earn the paycheck. We have our home job, the role in our household that brings with it a different kind of responsibility toward others than at our work. We have our friendships, doing our part to keep up with those we choose to show yet another level of responsibility toward others by keeping up with friends as best we can. Every role, every job has an inherent list of "to do" items we need to accomplish in order fulfill that role.

So we make our "to do" list. This list may be dictated by a boss who expects certain things to happen each week. Maybe our email dictates our day. Maybe the family routines of activities or dinner around the table add to our lists. There really isn’t a way to get rid of lists – tangible or intangible – because there are always things to be done.

What if we rethink our to do lists? Instead of the list dictating our day, what if wonder dictates our day instead? Mind shift. We confront the things we need to do by adopting the mindset that we “get” to accomplish things today. We act on our responsibilities by wondering how to accomplish them, rather than apathetically responding when the responsibility becomes a requirement.

In his book, Developing The Leader Within You 2.0, John Maxwell writes, “The moment you confront and act on a problem, you being to solve it. If great inventors and explorers hadn’t taken tangible, deliberate steps forward, would they have made the contributions they’re known for?”

Inventors and explorers don’t become known because they apathetically wait for a problem to come to them. They don't wait for some relationship to give them a task list or role to fulfill. Inventors and explorers wonder what could be. They look for ways to confront the task and the possibilities beyond that task. For us to make our greatest daily impact, we can’t simply respond to problems. There will always be more than we can handle when we’re reacting to what’s put on us. This is an apathetic approach to our responsibilities. Take the “a” off the word “apathetic” and we get a view of our usual results.

As you think through or write down your to do list, take a moment to wonder. Don’t stop at “what can I do?”, but think about “how can I do and do more?” Attack everything on the list with a proactive mind shift that finds solutions even before you address the item. Be in a perpetual state of wonder, curious about how you can learn more, accomplish more, desire more. You’ll soon see the mind shift means mind blown.