Does it seem like your “To Do” list is never-ending?

Add one more thing. Something you love to do.

Many of us who are bright, creative, filled with wonderful ideas for a wide variety of projects, AND have attention issues have difficulty completing all those never-ending tasks on our To Do lists.

Since our time is taken up slogging through those other things, how can we ever find time to do what we really WANT to do?

I’ve heard the line of thought that it’s better to get the unappealing chores out of the way first.

But I have an opposite idea. Do what you love first.

Try to accomplish something you feel passionate about first thing in the morning (right after your meditation practice!). Come up with a realistic goal and schedule time for it before all else.

If this isn’t possible, then find time later in the day.

The important thing is, that by entering into the state of Flow, as the psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi calls it (he wrote about in his book of the same name)—that state of consciousness “when a person’s body or mind is stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile”—, our psychic energy gets restored. It attains new strength and vigor.

Flow is when we feel a sense of harmony, and we want to pursue whatever we are doing for its own sake.

After we have experienced this state, we don’t mind so much when we have to tackle all those other things that need to get done. Why? Because after focusing all of our thoughts, intentions, feelings, and senses on the same goal, one that we choose for ourselves, we feel more “together” than before.

By allowing ourselves the opportunity to enter that state, we can approach the other business of the day with a more present, mindful quality.

By focusing first on something that comes naturally to us, we focus better on everything.

“Twenty minutes on the piano has the…effect for me. Once it’s in the bank I’m ready for more or less anything the day can throw at me. Without it, things are harder.”

-Alan Rusbridger, author of An Amateur Against the Impossible.