Affirming Your Identity Through Productivity

Lately my task list has felt like a weight around my shoulders. Waking up and looking at “what I have to do” for the day. Do you ever feel like this?

Don’t get me wrong, many times there’s some fun stuff on the list I get excited to dig into. But then there’s the days where it just feels like a slog.

I’m a fan of David Allen’s “Getting Things Done” methodology because it enables you to get everything that’s in your head dumped out onto paper—which is a freeing feeling. However, when you’re done, you realize it’s A LOT of stuff! Moving through it all can be like swimming upstream.

Finally, I stopped and asked myself why it felt so hard. The answer was that none of it felt purposeful. It just felt necessary. I realized I wasn’t tying my actions back to what really matters—who I am.

Rather than dividing to-dos up into areas of my life, I stopped and made a list of my identities. We all play many roles in life, but I hadn’t taken the time to write those out. I’m a boyfriend, a son, a dog dad, a friend, a writer, a performer, an athlete, a philanthropist, etc. All in all, I wound up with 16 different roles I play in life, covering every aspect of the person I am as well as the person I’m trying to become.

Then I wrote down a couple goals for each identity. Then I unpacked those goals into projects, and the projects into actions. I even put an emoji next to each task representing which identity it’s tied to.

Now when I check something off my “to-do” list, it’s more than just a task complete. It’s a small step toward becoming a better [enter identity here].

This whole thing is still new, and I’m only a week into using this system… but it feels good. I’ll keep you posted on how it goes and what else I learn.

“Don’t let what you do define who you are. Let who you are define what you do.”