I LOVE LISTS! l delight in writing down all of the tasks I have to do in the day. It helps relieve my memory and enhances my peace of mind.
When I’ve got it together enough to do it the night before, it helps to insure a good night’s sleep. Otherwise I wake up in the middle of the night, fretting about something I don’t want to forget.
And I’m a paper kinda gal, although my VA has been easing me onto Trello, an online board for organizing your life and work. But nothing beats a clean sheet and a lovely fine point pen with rich black ink to make my mark on the day. Oh, the possibilities!
But even more than writing lists, I love crossing things off the list as they get done. What a tremendous feeling of satisfaction and accomplishment! If I happen to complete a task that was not on my list, I write it in so that I can immediately cross it off. All those cross outs say victory is mine, and I have conquered the day.
Sometimes I make my list in chronological order according to the time of day they should be done. That way, I can also arrange my travel time around town, making sure I take the most efficient routes on the subway, bus or on foot. This is when the list gets put into my calendar.
Other times, I put the most challenging tasks first – the ones I am not at all excited to do (opening mail, filing, gathering receipts for expense reports), but must be done anyway. I tackle them early and reward myself by doing the easier or more fun tasks after.
These are the overt tasks, the work in the material world that makes my human life manageable. But there are also the covert, inner tasks that make the world go ‘round on the unseen level. This is the 2nd To Do List, the List of Power.
First, let’s take a step back to review the workings of the mind.
Everything starts with a picture in our heads. Before the table is built, the song is composed, the poem is written, the surgery performed, the person executing that task thinks about it.
We envision the steps toward the making, the process of the making and the finished product. We often take this step for granted because it’s automatic. For example, we don’t think about blinking or breathing, but we do it all the time.
By now you’ve probably heard of visualization. It’s the same picturing process, but with Intention. It is evoking what you want to be, do or have as though they are already completed, already in hand.
More than wishful thinking, visualization employs the illustrating faculty of the brain (imagination) along with intensity of feeling (emotion) and a discerning that is greater and stronger than believing (knowing).
Visualization relies on the fact that the universe – the unseen, constantly expanding, ever creative realm – exists as a field of limitless possibilities, ready to manifest wherever we put our focus, whether we are conscious where we are focusing or not.
That is where this The List of Power is aimed.
After writing down my everyday tasks, I make another list of what I want to experience as the best outcomes of the work I am doing, or in clearer communications with the people in my life, or in being a magnet for more abundance in all forms – health, wealth and happiness.
If it’s to have a successful production, I see a standing ovation in my mind’s eye. For harmony in a troubled relationship, I visualize the person and me hugging or shaking hands. How about an additional inflow of money? Nothing’s better than picturing opening my mailbox and seeing an envelope with a check in it.
So on top of the delineation of tasks, I line up the power of vibration on my side. Then I go to sleep and let my subconscious mind get to work fulfilling my expectations by bringing my images to life.
