Failing with your To-Do list? || Acharya Prashant, at SPIT Mumbai (2022)

Acharya Prashant

Video Information: 9.12.22, SPIT-College, Mumbai  Context: ~ How to complete my to-do list? ~ How to deal with procrastination?  ~ How to not be lazy? ~ How to commit to one thing?  ~ How to stay motivated? ~ Why do we require constant motivation?   Music Credits: Milind Date  ~~~~~  #acharyaprashant #todolist #procrastination #lazy #students #motivation

Transcript

00:00So, we have often many tasks to do in our day-to-day life and we make to-do list.

00:07But we fail to complete it and the loop goes on every time.

00:11So what can be the other ways to overcome this?

00:17The right things in your to-do list and then you will be forced to complete them.

00:25The reason why the to-do list goes unattended and unabegging is because it is full of worthless

00:35tasks.

00:36You write 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 to-dos.

00:41Not one of those six is something you can love to complete.

00:49Love is missing.

00:51So you find excuses to avoid those six tasks, six out of six.

00:58Then you push yourself using the thing called willpower and with great difficulty you manage

01:03to complete two or three out of the six.

01:08And two or three is enough to somehow cross the line and get you passing marks in whatever

01:15examination.

01:18Life has all kinds of examinations.

01:21And then again the list is remade next day and again you find two out of six, three out

01:27of six.

01:30The cut-off has been cleared.

01:31You have survived for the next day to repeat the same story.

01:36The problem is not the absence of willpower or motivation or whatever.

01:41The problem is that you do not know the tasks to take up.

01:47When you pen down something, when you assign a task to yourself, ask, is it important?

01:57If it is not important, why must I pretend to give it importance?

02:03Why must I even jot this thing down?

02:09Let me be bold enough to simply omit it or strike it out.

02:15And if something is indeed important, why can't I sit with it for five minutes and

02:22appreciate its importance?

02:26If something is important, don't just write down four words about it.

02:32Give four minutes to it, just four minutes.

02:37And ask yourself, why is this thing important?

02:43Why?

02:45What does it give to me?

02:49What does it turn me into?

02:51How does it help me, raise me, strengthen me, purify me?

02:58And if you have good enough answers, then you will find it has become impossible now

03:03to avoid that task.

03:07You will keep everything else aside and commit yourself to that task if you really understand

03:13its importance.

03:15So we see the problem lies not in the absence of willpower but in the absence of understanding.

03:22Most of us complain of lack of motivation.

03:25That is hardly a problem because motivation helps nobody.

03:29You do not require motivation, you require realization.

03:33You do not realize whether something is important.

03:39Have you seen how motivated you are?

03:43Just by yourself, inspired from within, when you really know the importance of something.

03:50Have you seen that?

03:55Somebody in your family is sick.

03:59Do you require to be externally and artificially motivated to call the ambulance?

04:08Or to put that person in some car, some vehicle and rush him to the hospital?

04:17Do you feel demotivated?

04:19No.

04:20There are so many things you just spontaneously feel inspired for.

04:28Why?

04:29Because there is some kind of clarity.

04:32You know the task holds something for you and that's what energizes you.

04:39You know what this task is for.

04:43Unfortunately, as happens with most of us, happened with me as well, we do not know why

04:51we are doing a lot of things that we do.

04:55Why are we there in an engineering campus?

04:59Because that's the in thing.

05:03Why do we find ourselves in a particular department?

05:07That's what our rank gave us.

05:11Why am I in a particular hostel?

05:13Pure chance, randomness.

05:16Somebody allotted that hostel to me.

05:19Why do I have to attend a certain course?

05:21I don't know.

05:24I was given a timetable and a schedule and it said mechanical workshop, Mondays 8am-12noon.

05:35So like a zombie I am standing there.

05:40First of all I don't know why I am there in mechanical.

05:43Then I don't know why I am there in the workshop.

05:47And then the workshop assigned me some task.

05:52I duly wrote that down in my to-do list.

05:56How will you feel inspired to take that task up?

06:01You have no relationship with that task.

06:03Do you see what is missing?

06:05Love.

06:06You just don't know why that task needs to be done.

06:12They have sent you to the foundry or to fitting or to carpentry, welding.

06:20How many mechanical jobs here?

06:23Nobody.

06:24The college does not have mechanical at all.

06:31Oh IT.

06:34And there would be a lot of people who never wrote a proper line of code their life.

06:43The entrance exam would be testing you on PCM, correct?

06:47Not on your programming skills.

06:49Not on your knowledge of computer science.

06:53So along with PCM, you might as well have had Hindi or Marathi or Sanskrit or Biology

06:59and you can still be here, right?

07:02You come here and you look at the thing called computer for the first time.

07:10And then a most advanced language called Fortran or COBOL is taught to you.

07:22Nobody got it.

07:23That's okay.

07:24And you are told to write a program for this, this, this, this, this, arrays and stacks

07:39and this and that.

07:42Already been assigned that?

07:43Already?

07:44No?

07:45And you don't know why the hell should I be an expert in stacking?

07:54That's the missing link.

07:55You do not know why you should be doing something.

07:59Once you know why you should be doing something, the hows become instantaneously clear.

08:06Inspiration just arises.

08:09It is no more an external task.

08:11It is your own.

08:13I want to do it.

08:14I love it.

08:17Then you will go even beyond the mandate.

08:20Nice.

08:21Let me try this one out as well.

08:25There are additional problems on the net.

08:30Can I try my hand at them?

08:37Spend time with your to-do list and dare to cross a few things out.

08:45Even if that means some damage, some repercussions, I don't know.

08:50Don't like it?

08:51Won't take it up.

08:52Out of the six things, I'll take up only four.

08:55But to these four, I'll commit my effort, my heart, everything.

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