Recently my attention was drawn to Mel Robbin’s Countdown Method of getting going with tasks and projects which you’re resisting. It’s a bit like a method I used as a child of getting out of bed in the morning (in pre-central heating days). I used to count down 3-2-1. It was sometimes successful and sometimes not.
Space flight didn’t exist in those days so I didn’t have the example of a space rocket launch to add a couple more digits and a lot more excitement. I wish I had because so far I’ve found the 5-4-3-2-1 countdown to be very effective (why do you think i’m writing my first blog post for over a month?)
I haven’t yet gone much further into the ways Mel Robbins recommends this should be used, but it struck me immediately that it would go very weil with one of my methods which I call “Halving” to myself, but was originally published under the title Another Simple and Effective Method
This method has remained one of my “go back to” systems. The main problem with it is that eventually all the easy tasks in the early part of the list have been done and the result can be considerable resistance to the more difficult tasks which remain. So an infallible method of overcoming resistance would be just the thing.
If 5-4-3-2-1 can be used to remove the resistance to individual tasks, “Halving” would make an excellent system to go with it. Because of the way it’s designed, easy or urgent tasks get dealt with quickly but the more difficult or less urgent tasks nevertheless inevitably get dealt with without lingering.
I’m trying it out at the moment. So far very successful, but it’s still Day 1. I’ll report back soon.