Postcards from the Funny Farm

Limiting yourself to 3 priorities on your “todo” list can really make you more productive. I had a lot to do today. In fact, it was so much it was quite overwhelming. I decided to take on my pool first. It has this very odd looking green algae growing on the sides and bottom in some places. My week last week was so busy all I did was look at it grow. Today I had to sweep it off with a brush. It took me about an hour. Anyway, this post isn’t about my tough life cleaning my pool :) I wanted to talk about prioritizing in direction of goals.

The human mind can only take in about 3 things in one sitting. For that reason, you shouldn’t make lists longer than three. That doesn’t mean all you will get done is 3 things, because those can be like categories. ie;

1) Chores (pool, floors, clean out car, paint girls’ room, etc.)
2) Computer (write post for www.damienriley.com, comment on blogs, look up vitamin deficiency info for Postcards … etc)
3) Exercise

You get the idea. Reducuing my lists and priorities in direction of 3 goals (or less) has helped me achieve many of my dreams in life. Also, sometimes it just gave me that “I DID IT!” deep breath and feeling when I went to bed at night. Without goals, you’ll never get anywhere. But without priorities (3 or less I recommend) You’ll just get overwhelmed. It’s kind of like trying to put on a steering wheel with no steering rack.

Of course I am referring to nowhere other than my garage. Through the years my wife and I have accumulated a cache of exercise equipment. Ranging from like Precor elliptical to less fancy stuff like 40 dollar steppers. Nonetheless, it gets in my way when I need to get a tool or find a lightbulb. Every piece of equipment tells a short story. I wonder how much those stories get told once the owner of the steppers etc. has passed on. All dust I imagine.

I remember when we got the 40 dollar stepper. At least, I assume it was valued once at 40 dollars. We got it on credit and I am not honestly sure if we have even payed it off yet. It might be an interesting post to go through my home and find out exactly what we have paid on some things that still are on credit. But for now, let’s stick to the exercise stuff. Since we got our latest device: the Nordic Trac treadmill, we haven’t used any of that old stuff. Our treadmill is awesome and it works our cardio which we both are working on. Nonetheless, a vast array of old devices sit inside our garage collecting dust? Am I normal here? have you bought stuff like this and rarely used it? I wonder how many people are just like me in this. My biggest challenge now is to use the treadmill as much as possible, after all it is the most expensive yet.