Let Your Yes be Your Yes

“But let your yes be your yes and your no, no. For whatever is more than these is from the evil one.”  – Matthew 5:37, Jesus speaking

Last week we talked about starting your day with the author of time and the creator of you. This week we dive into the tactical steps of time or commitment management. We want our “Yes to be our Yes”, but pulling that off can be tricky in our fast-paced world. 

Too often, I say yes to keep from disappointing someone or making them unhappy. But, If I cannot get around to fulfilling that commitment, they are still disappointed and I feel terrible. I’ve found that feeling bad about saying no is a lot healthier for me and those around me. 

So, how do we make sure that our yes is our yes? We need a system. The system is what chapter 2 of “Redeeming Your Time (RYT)” (the great book by Jordan Raynor that we are reviewing) gets into. 

In chapter two, Raynor starts with two important concepts. 

The first concept is called the “Zeigarnik” effect. The Zeigarnik effect explains how our brains are distracted by open loops. An open loop is any personal or professional commitment that you have not put into your commitment tracking system and decided on the next best action to take. It has been proven that we are less able to focus on our present task or situation if we have open loops running around in our heads. Our brains are designed for action, not storage. Attempting to store all of our to-do’s in our heads uses up precious mental RAM (rapid access memory). 

The second concept is that stress is not caused by having too much to do. (What? I am pretty sure that my stress is because I have too much to do!) Raynor goes on to explain that we will always have too much to do. Even when we retire and our kids are out of the house, we will have more things we want or have to do than we have time to accomplish. 

Instead, Raynor says that stress is caused by open loops. Once we get a task out of our head and into our system, our stress reduces and we are better able to focus on the task at hand. 

How do we get these open loops out of our heads to reduce our stress, guarantee that our yes is our yes, and get greater focus on our tasks at hand? Raynor lays out five practices to help us create a rock-solid commitment tracking system. 

Practice 1 – Choose a Workflow

Raynor’s workflow is an adaptation of David Allen’s system outlined in his excellent book, “Getting Things Done (GTD).” Don’t worry about picking up a copy of that book. We will outline Raynor’s adaptation in the next few practices. 

Practice 2 – Commit to a Single Commitment Tracking System (CTS)

When I went through the RYT course, I was not set on my CTS. I had been using Basecamp for years. Basecamp is an awesome, simple system that allows you to work seamlessly with people outside your organization. I love it, but it does not work well with a GTD-style system. 

So, I started looking for one that would work. I work on a PC and pay Microsoft a monthly fee for Office 365 so I was hoping Microsoft would have something that worked. I settled on Microsoft To-Do. It is included with my Office 365 subscription and Microsoft is doing a great job of integrating it further into their eco-system. It is not as good as Basecamp at working with people outside your organization, but it appears Microsoft is making improvements in that area. I’m hopeful! 

And To Do works great with GTD. If you go to the store at gettingthingsdone.com, you can even find a setup guide for Microsoft To Do and other CTS software options that are popular with folks who follow GTD. 

Raynor is an Apple guy and he uses a system that works well with Apple called Omnifocus. The key is to find and implement a digital system that you will use. Why digital? There are a lot of great paper-based commitment tracking systems, but most of us live digital lives now. We spend most of our days in front of digital devices and a digital CTS is way easier than trying to keep up with things on paper if you live a similarly digital lifestyle. 

The key is to find one that you will use. Kinda like choosing a workout plan. One that you will use is the best one! By the way, email and text messages are not viable options for your CTS. 

Raynor suggests two must-haves when choosing your CTS. They are:

• It must be portable so you can capture open loops wherever they pop up. 
• It must be sophisticated enough to match the volume and complexity of your responsibilities (now and in the future). 

If you go to jordanraynor.com/ryt, Raynor has free resources to help you choose your CTS. You also might want to quickly glance through the full book (or this series) to better understand how you will use your CTS. 

You will get a lot more out of each practice once you have committed to your CTS. This article series is how I am going back through all the practices now that I have committed to Microsoft To Do as my CTS. 

Raynor freely admits that he had worked his system for over a decade before writing this book. There are a lot of habits that we must adopt to make this system work. Take your time with it. Give yourself lots of grace and early pats on the back. Know that every step forward is a step towards less stress and more productivity. 

Practice 3 – Collect Your Open Loops

When I originally read “Getting Things Done”, David Allen was referring to all weekend sessions with executives taking them through collecting their open loops. If your system is behind or paper-based, this practice will take you some time. It involves clearing out every email and every paper-based task or document and getting them all into your CTS. Don’t get discouraged, the key is to choose your CTS and work towards getting everything into it. I have plenty of emails in my inbox still, but my CTS is capturing more and more of my most important tasks. I am feeling more and more on top of my tasks and my stress levels are dropping. Just get started and things will begin to improve quickly. 

When you start collecting your open loops, each item will go into one of three lists:

• Inbox – This is where every incoming task goes until it finds its proper home. Focus on getting all your open loops into the inbox of your CTS first. We will clean our inbox out at least weekly as part of our weekly review. For instance, if an email has a task associated with it or needs to be filed away, put it in your CTS inbox (not your email inbox). You’ll know where it is and you will know that you will act on it later (but take care of it if it will require 2 mins or less – this is a Practice 4 concept). Getting everything into the inbox of your CTS is how we begin to clear away our mental clutter. When you are processing your Inbox later, you will convert those tasks into Projects or Next Actions. Understand that putting all your open loops into your system will provide relief that all your commitments are in one place. But, it can also cause overwhelm when you see all that you have committed to. You also may feel some guilt when you find some balls that you dropped. Push through. Relief is coming. The key is to get every commitment into your Inbox. We’ll deal with each of them in Practice 4. 
• Projects List – These are items that will have multiple steps to complete. 
• Actions or Next Actions – These require only one step to complete. 

There are still two more Practices in Chapter 2. We will cover those in our next article. Choosing a system and collecting your open loops are two very big tasks. That is plenty of work to keep you busy for now!

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