You Don’t “Have to” Do Everything
The workplace is rife with things that you seemingly “have to” do. You “have to” be at this meeting. You “have to” respond to this email. For many, those two words reign supreme over their workflow.
Research shows that workers make it, on average, only 11 minutes into a project before being distracted. It then takes 25 minutes for them to return back to their task. When we “have to” do something, we are letting external factors dictate our priorities, often to the detriment of things we should be doing.
Greg McKeown is the author of the New York Timesbestseller Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less, suggests that we watch our language the next time we feel like we “have to” do something:
Every time we say, “I have to take this call” or “I have to send this piece of work off” or “I have to go to this client meeting,” we are assuming that previous commitments are nonnegotiable. Every time you use the phrase “I have to” over the next week, stop and replace it with “I choose to.” It can feel a little odd at first — and in some cases it can even be gut-wrenching (if we are choosing the wrong priority). But ultimately, using this language reminds us that we are making choices, which enables us to make a different choice.
When you resist the tyranny of “I have to” and embrace the genius of “I choose to” (especially whenrespectful and structured ) deflects distractions and ensures that the right projects are completed.
