How to host a great community event using just a Google Doc!
To-do lists can be harsh mirrors.
Sure, if you’re firing on all cylinders, they’re a helpful tool—sort what you need to do, get it done, on to the next thing!—but if things aren’t going totally perfectly for you, they can quickly become stark reminders.
At the end of the day, who are you, really?
Are you a “got half my to-dos done” kind of person? To-do lists make that very difficult. They imply that you should be able to get them all done, and when you don’t, you’ve failed in some way.
There are a lot of ways to manage this.
One approach I like, however, is to flip the activity on its head. While it’s still important to set goals for yourself, it’s also helpful to acknowledge all the things you actually do. Doing so will help you feel better about yourself, but also so you can set realistic expectations for yourself regarding how much you can actually expect to achieve.
👉 Semi-synchronous community building is awesome.
As I did more community-building gatherings, I saw that getting people together to work worked a lot better when we knew what we all were up to. More than that—when we knew what we were achieving, things got really great!
So I started creating a social version of something I had started playing with in my own time: the To-DONE list.
It’s devastatingly simple.
You create a blank document, with numbered bullet points. When you achieve anything—anything at all—you write it down.
Every entry is an instant win.
This can be done solo. It feels really good to do on your own!
When you add other people into the mix? It becomes a whole other game.
👍 Advantages of a social To-DONE list:
People get to learn about what others are working on
People identify things they want to learn from each other or help each other with.
People feel a sense of camaraderie as they sort of work together
People feel good about the work they get done
It’s semi-synchronous, so there’s context and urgency but people can still have their own schedules
It is insanely easy to set up and facilitate!
Watching the event unfold throughout the day is a trip. People start sharing increasingly diverse activities, from tiny accomplishments (“Showered!”) to big ones (“Launched my new produce!”).
People start using the commenting feature to respond to each other’s notes—sometimes to cheer them on, sometimes to say they resonate, sometimes to brainstorm solutions, sometimes to ask for more details.
I always learn something useful when I do this exercise!
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Register to get your own editable copy of my To-DONE list Google Doc here:
https://forms.gle/WwAv8Q6YxmpY41jD8
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http://tonybacigalupo.com
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