Productivity: Needs and Wants

For the last two weeks I’ve been talking about getting what you really want by resisting urges and collecting desires.  Today I’m going to share the todo list that I’ve been using to make sure the necessities get taken care of as well.  Instead of creating a simple todo list, I have a file that I start fresh everyday and save as needsandwants.txt.

It usually looks something like this.

Needs:
Return Library Book
Complete Website Development Work
Pay Cable Bill

Wants:
Walk to the Park
Get Groceries
Look up Vintage Stereos
Learn New Software
Call Friends for Happy Hour
Research Business Retirement Options
Listen to New Album

I empty my mind into this list, and then appropriate my time as I see fit.  The needs category is first and slim containing only things that I absolutely must do today.  This includes things like client work and urgent tasks.  I don’t need to go the grocery store today, I can get food tomorrow, but tomorrow, it might be a need because I’m out of food.

The wants portion, as described previously, grows larger than the needs.  This contains everything else that I think I might want to do today.  This includes a wide variety of things from walk in the park to study the latest technology.  This also lets me see that there are several things that seem like work that I actually want to do.  I may not need to clean my kitchen unless I’m perhaps having a party that night, but I might want to put away the dishes for my own personal satisfaction.