Just One Action

The New Year is a great time to reset the course of what you want to achieve. The shortest day is behind us, and there is the hope of more time each day to do what you enjoy doing.

One of the biggest challenges to anyone wanting to do things differently is that often the tasks, or ambitions that we set ourselves are so big that we run out of energy, or they simply overwhelm us and any New Year Resolution is often defeated by February.

Here at Escape Learn Create we would like to suggest a different way of getting things done, faced with endless ‘To do’ lists in both our domestic and working lives  our Just One Action List’ approach is a very practical and achievable way of tackling not just the day to day tasks but also as a way of achieving longer term ambitions.

At the start of each day, or the night before, think about one thing that you would really like to achieve that day. Ideally this is something that you keep putting off, or it keeps dropping down your ‘To Do’ list because other more pressing demands get in the way.

Importantly choose something that you can realistically achieve in the time available.

Many people find that the demands of others create constraints on their time, others with more free time find their own inertia, or lack of motivation prevent them achieving their potential.

The Just One Action List approach means that instead of feeling overwhelmed with the bigger ambitions you select one part of it that you can achieve that day. There are so many examples of the baby steps that can be taken as part of a larger task e.g.

Everything falls out of the bathroom cabinet when you open the doors.

The kitchen drawer where you keep everything that doesn’t have a home, is overflowing.

You dream of creating a ‘hotel bed experience’, but you need to buy new bedding, or wash the existing sheets, duvet cover etc.

You would love to catch up with old friends.

You would like to arrange a special dinner.

You want to explore the potential of looking for a new job.

You want to redecorate one of the rooms in your home.

You want to help your children with their option choices.

Each task can be broken down into a series of smaller tasks and be allocated an amount of time. Some actions like tidying the bathroom cabinet or the kitchen drawer can be achieved in a relatively short time frame. You might want to order some small storage compartments for the drawer but effectively you could allocate one hour max and sort the drawer. Other ambitions will need to be broken down into a series of steps, our Action List download can help with this

The key is making the commitment and just getting on and doing it.

Everyone needs to create the best conditions for peak performance; getting enough sleep, the right nutrition, allocating enough time to complete the task.

If you love music, use it to help you, energetic music for boring repetitive tasks, soothing music for tasks that involve concentration. Everything is connected, the better you know yourself the more you can achieve. Seize those moments when inspiration strikes. Don’t worry about convention, work at a time that suits you. Streamline everyday tasks so you don’t waste time. Also pace yourself, don’t try and achieve so much that you are exhausted, remember you want to be able to keep this approach going each day.

Ideally this is an approach that can work with others, if you can work in partnership it’s a great way of achieving family goals, or when you are working in teams, but ultimately it’s a way of achieving what you need to do, so that you can spend more time doing what you would really like to do.

Importantly also recognize each step along the way, if you keep a journal, note down what you want to achieve and as you achieve it, you can look back and recognize, how much you have achieved. For the bigger tasks you may want to build in rewards for you and others.

You can use our Just One Action Workbook to help prepare if you need to order things, as a reminder list, or as a way of breaking down the task into smaller actions. Click here to access our resource library where you can download this workbook as well as other helpful resources.