Make a To-Be List

Over the years I’ve studied a lot of productivity and time management systems and books. I guess I’ve been a bit of a productivity junkie. I’ve read a lot of organizational books, studied various systems, and have tried many different planners, digital as well as analog. I realize most of us spend a lot of efforts organizing our outer daily to-dos. What about our to-be list?

When our doing flows from beingness - who we are and not what we do - then our doingness has more meaning and can flow better. We can learn to be more detached from the results of our actions. This can result in greater joy and peace.

Here are some to-be ideas based on time management:

1. Here’s a to-do day: you begin knowing what you want to accomplish. You can't just show up for work and then sit there wondering what you're going to do. The night before, as you finish for the day, look at what needs to get done and organize the next day. Then when you show up, you can begin work right away.

 Here’s a to-be day. Ask: who do you want to become? What qualities do you want to embody in your life? Write them down. Being patient, loving, respectful of others while staying in the Presence. Perhaps you add having healthy habits, being kind to self and others, and becoming more aware.

2. Next, ask who would you be if you embodied the qualities you say you want? How would you organize your day? How would it be different? What would your priorities be? Then plan your day around these. Bring the qualities into your reality as you engage in the realities of your physical life.

3.  Are there public figures who embody the qualities you want to adopt? Get their pictures and put them in your day planner, on your computer, phone, tablet -somewhere you will see them. Study their lives. Read about their struggles and how they overcame difficulties. What can you adopt in your life to be more like them?

4. Be the guardian of your time. If you don’t, who will? Even more importantly, guard your mental, emotional, and spiritual spaces. This means making decisions about what thoughts, feeling, and images you will allow into your space. To be your best and highest self, it is important that only those of high quality be allowed entrance.  

5.  Don't let others control you. Decide who you want to be and guard that jealously. Don't let yourself be wooed away by others. There are many people who love to hijack your day and your life. Once you know who you want to be and what you want to do, don’t let anyone else seep their to-bes or to-dos into your life.

6.  Be honest with yourself. Lying to ourselves is quite common but doesn’t serve the highest purpose of being who we truly want to be.

7.  Don't let complainers bring you down or change your focus. All of us know people who are never happy no matter how good their lives are. These same people seem to have a proclivity for making other people as miserable as they are. Don’t let them do this to you. Refer to number four and five above.

8.  Just as you keep work surfaces clear and organized, organize your mind, and keep it clear of mental clutter that doesn't serve you. Choose an affirmation for the day that supports who you want to be and use it as a mantra. Any time a non-supportive thought enters your mind, evict it with the opposite positive thought or feeling.

9.  Being is about living from your intuitive, feminine, spiritual self rather than from your doing, linear, masculine self. We need both energies in our lives. Let the feminine energy draw the map and set the energies while the masculine part enacts them on the physical plane.

10.  Choose three qualities you want to engage every day. These can be the same for awhile or can differ. Write them down; don't just do this in your head! The physical act of writing them down begins to set everything into action on the physical plane.

The results of having a to-be list means you will approach your day in a more organized way, with calmness and joy, instead of feeling stressed out, worried, and rushing around. You will be your highest and best which will allow for your to -do list to be even more magnificent.

Living in grace and ease,

Krysta