What’s Behind Daily Accomplishment List-Posts

Ever read one of those posts that lists aaaaall of the things someone has gotten ?? done in a day– and you couldn't help but feel sh*t about yourself because you thought:

“damn … how are they so productive in one day… again? If only I’d get one of those days in anytime uh soon(ish) … k thanks”

– then I wanna lighten your load a bit today by breaking down what (most) of these lists look like

And before I start I wanna say that I in no way diminish the people who post these lists, nor their effort and how much they get done

?? No, I applaud you.

My intention here is to show other people (especially neurodiverse friends & friends in chronic pain/ with chronic illness) who feel as if they weren’t doing enough or trying to compare what they can do in a day with those type of lists – that all that glitters is not gold on the internet.

All right, let’s do this.

?? When I see those lists it is usually made up of a few different type of tasks that I wanna break down for you so you can see it for yourself next time and understand these posts better:

1| IN THE BUSINESS TASKS

Those are tasks that you do to fulfill client work, any service work, and/or product fulfillment or development.

Usually, those are important tasks and also the ones that need quite some time investment.

Examples: Coaching/Consulting Sessions, Creating content for your programs, Writing copy or creating content for clients, Creating a strategy, concepts, marketing material, etc for clients, Creating a Makrame/Pottery/Planner/ anything handcrafted piece for your customer who bought it online … etc.

2| ON THE BUSINESS TASKS

Just as important, these are tasks that can be super quick or take ‘forever’ … these are tasks to grow, evolve and develop your business.

Examples: Decision Making, Business investment (from where to put your money, to “Shall I invest in this coach”, to “Do I need to hire another person”), Marketing, Payroll, Team management, etc.

3| TINY TASKS

Those are tasks I call tiny because they usually don’t take longer than 15 minutes – that is to say that some of us neurodiverse folks may need longer for them (and that’s where we also run into the comparison trap thinking “Wow this would take me SO long when it’s actually basic tasks for neurotypical people)

Examples: Social Media Posts (again this depends, this one is taking me already 30+ minutes so it’s a “maybe”), Delegating tasks (this is also a maybe, some take longer I’d you have to create trainings but then again this is another tasks then), Posting something where people can book on a calender link (and then say you book xx about of people in that probably used the link), sending quick notes to clients on a messenger app, checking things off lists, making (some) decisions, accepting invitations to interviews, etc.

You see there are a lot of 15 min tasks I can go on with but you get the point – they all sound big though writing them out …

4| BUSY TASKS

This is one of the categories my clients and I go through very detail oriented and cut as much as possible out of their business lives – because they are keeping them busy (not aligned with their core values) …

These can sound like you get a lot of things done but really they mostly keep you procrastinating on the first two categories and not moving the needle.

Examples: Engaging in FB groups and posting value posts aimlessly, arguing and commenting on random people’s FB posts about “your” expertise, cold messaging anyone with pitches that don’t know you… you get the point

5| SUPPORTED TASKS

These are tasks that are prepped by our team or assistants, social media managers, or other business magicians who support us day in and out. These tasks could hours for them to prepare (and when we then talk about us “doing” that tasks it can sound to others as if we have spent that full time on it) but it may only take a click or a small time for us to finish them off.

Examples: Publishing an article (people may think we have been doing the whole process from writing to editing to finding photos etc alone in one day but really we may have written it a week ago, our assistant did the rest and today we publish it. Took 5 minutes), creating posts (same here, maybe we write it but our team does the rest and schedules, etc), writing emails (same same but different)… you get it …

6| SELFCARE & CO

Preparing lunch, doing laundry, cleaning, resting, having coffee, going shopping, etc.

These are all things we need to do for ourselves let alone getting hair/nails/facials/pedicures etc. done – I hope you have the time for it!

Listing it as tasks you got done (which is fair) can definitely create a heavy feeling in neurodiverse folks, as executive function can be very challenging or limited to the point where laundry for example is just not getting done ?? ♀? so if that’s you please know that is OK AND that the person posting most likely has a very different capacity and executive function (no matter in what ways) than you do.

?? These are the task groups that most people would include in list posts …

yet as a holistic high-performance and leadership integrator, I personally would only look at the first 2 categories and what has been done there…

?? Now another thing we need to take into account here (as if that wasn’t enough, I know) is that language plays a HUGE role in these posts.

Because social media is a highlighted role we like to “blow up” our language instead of saying what really is. May it be in the name of “abundance” or “manifestation” or simply wanting to look better … who knows. It also doesn’t matter.

?? So people may write “Published an article on my website” instead of “Clicked publish on my new article” – see the difference it makes in your imagination of what that task looked like.

?? Or they write “doing payroll for my team” instead of “paying my assistant” – hear the difference in size here?

See language matters a lot. Of course, you can say whatever the hell you want – and as leadership is one of my main focuses in work I always recommend transparency.

?? You can choose the level of how much information you wanna share.

It just matters that you stay in integrity and hence choose language that shows an accurate picture of your life and business.

That’s all to say:

When you read lists and see so many ??????

please understand that this is a highlight reel after all.

Please know that this is another person’s snapshot of 1 day – you never know what other days look like.

Take into account that many of these tasks may have taken them much less time than it would have taken you – and the other way around.

Plus – their capacity is a totally different one than yours.

Talking about capacities –?there are 5 different types … but wow this is getting out of hand now

I feel like I am about to write?another book ???

BUT I did write an?article about capacities ?and I promise it will open your eyes even more to why some of us have tons of tasks ?? ticked off

And some of us just don’t.

?? So if you do wanna dive a little more into this, please go?read this article here , I promise you’ll learn a lot about yourself