What did you tick-off in your to-do list?

I am a keen user of the to-do list. And for all the gadgets I love to use, I use the A5 size notebook and a pen for my to-do. I religiously write down all things I want to get done. There are all sorts of things on my to-do list from writing a thank you mail to planning for my next book. Usually like most others my focus is always on reducing the list as it grows. So I normally pick all the items that can be quickly ticked off and do them.

This weekend I was in for some surprise. I happened to work on an essay which I wanted to send to a publication. On that day I started at 4 AM and except for an hour of break to sleep in the afternoon (and the mandatory breaks in between) I worked on it till about 10 PM at the essay. I was exhausted and after mailing the work for review, I promptly went to sleep. I was absolutely fulfilled with my work.

The next morning I got up and I was back to my previous day’s list to check off items that I had completed.  I was in for some serious surprise. I could only tick-off one item. And as usual a few more items got added. Oh my God! I thought to myself, how have I spent my previous day?Then the next couple of days I was back to completing lists! Enjoyed them too!

Today I sat to spend some time alone with myself doing nothing. I truly enjoy this the most!! It was during this period that this thought of “ticking-off” things came to my mind. There are days when I tick-off many items on the list but feel a sense of incompleteness and there are days when I tick just one item and feel extremely complete.

Have you had days like these? I thought about it and have promised myself to spend more and more days with lesser and lesser items on my to-do list. I will dedicate lesser days to spend on ticking off lots of items. I hope I can bring this discipline into my life. Because I realized that’s the only way I am going to be working on what I love more often than what I need to do!

How about you? What’s been your experience?