What's missing from your to-do list

Stuff you actually want to do

Aug 13, 2024

Transcript

This is The Nooner, a short daily (Monday - Saturday) newsletter slash podcast that has its very own section within Dispatches from Inner Space.

Every Sunday, I publish the Dispatches Weekly Digest (DWD), which lets you binge all the Nooners from the previous week. It also includes a meaningful song recommendation, and a short segment I call TMI, where I go off script to bring you backstage, so to speak.

Two more things about the DWD:

It goes on on the main Dispatches channel, so if you’re looking to spare your inbox from the daily emails without missing out on anything, you can specifically unsubscribe from The Nooner section, and still get the Digest on Sunday.
It’s only available to paid subscribers.

The Dispatches Weekly Digest is a labor of love, and I’m really proud of it, and if you want to hear it, I want you to hear it. So, if you can afford it…

And if you can’t, but you still think of yourself as one of my true fans, let me know and we’ll work something out.

For the to-do listers

Once, I loaned a book to a friend. Every couple of weeks, I’d ask him if he’d started reading it. The answer was always a sheepish no. My follow up question would be whether he actually wanted to read it, or if he’d rather just return it.

“No,” he would insist, “I really do want to!” It was just that it wasn’t necessary, so he would tend to put it off or forget.

This went on for months.

Finally, knowing he’s a pretty disciplined and organized guy, I suggested he add the following item to his to-do list:

Open the book and read a page

Three days later, he reached out to let me know he’d started reading the book, and he loved it.

If you’re the kind of person who uses to-do lists, try putting trivial things you actually want to do on it, as well as all the critical stuff you have to do.

This serves two purposes:

First, it’ll help you actually do some things you want to do, but struggle to make time for.

Second, it’ll pepper your to-do list with exciting little nuggets of fun, instead of being an endless march of drudgery.