Sunday night I had a little procrastination dilemma that led to an epiphany.
I got off work earlier than usual, so upon arriving at home, I had some spare time on my hands.
Great, a voice in my head sarcastically observed, Now you have time to get some things from your to-do list done.
Ugh. All I really wanted to do was continue reading the fifth Harry Potter book. What to do? Should I be productive, or should I indulge my desire to rejoin my magical companions at Hogwarts?
The two more pressing items on my to-do list were laundry and cooking food for the next few days. I checked my closet for clean work clothes. Running low. I checked the fridge. Out of pre-cooked meals. I glanced at my Google Calendar. No good windows of time in the next two days for cooking or laundry. It was clear that if I didn’t get these done tonight, I would be forced to do them late at night on Monday or Tuesday.
It would seem like an obvious choice, but logic doesn’t always produce motivation, and I really didn’t feel like doing these chores. Now, I know that not feeling like it doesn’t matter: You can work hard even when you don’t want to. I also know that starting the work tends to produce positive momentum that makes it easier to keep going. But these ideas were not sufficient to get me to do my chores that night. I wasn’t going to make it happen.
But then it hit me: The only items you ever put on your to-do list are things that will benefit your future selves. The future selves principle says that a helpful action performed by one of you – your present-moment self – will benefit the many yous that will eventually come into being – your future selves.
If I complete my chores tonight, I thought, I will make the next few days of my life much easier. Yes, I’ll pay a price tonight, but the return on investment will be high. I’ll get more sleep Monday and Tuesday, and I’ll stop paying the thinking cost of these chores. A couple of hours of work tonight will produce days of benefit. My future selves would thank me many times over for doing the work tonight.
This bit of reasoning was enough to get me off my butt. I completed my chores and was glad I did. It was another great reminder that if you complete whatever’s on your to-do list, you won’t regret it. Plus it helped me get a better understanding of what a to-do list is really for.
I never put items on my to-do lists like “watch Colbert” or “eat chocolate.” Instead, I put things like “go to Costco” and “vacuum.” When I write something on a to-do list, I’m basically saying to myself, Chris, I know you don’t want to do this thing, but you’ll be better off if you do.