Doing the Difficult

Despite no shortage of professional advice on accomplishing what I set out to do, my track record on taking items from my daily task list from its morning coffee review to a cross-off after supper when I create the next day's list never quite reflects a maximum effort.  Some things seem to have priority.  I take my medicine each day, an easy project, exercise on scheduled days, something that I don't especially like doing, and measure my weight and waist each Monday morning.  So my health seems to have my commitment.  So do things with deadlines or schedules.  Always go to my OLLI courses, nearly always do my two NEJM articles the week when that journal issue is the current one, send my monthly Medscape manuscript to the editor on time, read most of my library books by the return date, review the weekly Torah portion either on Thursday or Friday each week.

Some of my mental activity has not received the same personal commitment.  Nor has my effort to make my house the sanctuary I would like it to be, let alone attractive for sale when the not too distant years leave me unable to continue living there.  Perhaps a deadline system would be better.  Or maybe the daily task list should not have all the things I could do, but the one or two each day that I will focus on doing.  Or perhaps I really don't want to do serious writing or home maintenance but deceive myself into thinking I do.  Whichever, some reframing of intent and measurement of performance needs to be incorporated.  I assert that it starts now.