The Eventual Planifesto

I have written countless articles on the subject of productivity - both of the eventual and non-eventual sort. (Well, they aren’t really countless in as much as I’m not really willing to count them. You probably could count them if you wanted.) But I’d never written a book before, whether it be of the “e” or non-e kind. I eventually did write one of the “e” variety.

In terms of leadership, which is the theme of this issue, I guess you could see the leadership aspect would be that I’m one of those leading the charge when it comes to eventually writing an eBook.

Here are some excerpts from The Eventual Planifesto for your reading pleasure (or listening if someone reads it to you — Eventualists avoid reading):

On tasks

If you want to be perceived as a hard worker that takes on everything thrown their way, then you need to become a “task collector”. Simply put, you need to gather as many tasks as you can and do your best to get them done over a long period of time — as eventually as possible. Remember, collectibles generally increase in value as they age.

On goals

…if you have a goal that isn’t aligned with everyone else’s then people are going to expect results from you. They want to see what different people can accomplish when they think differently. That’s why the best goal you can have as an Eventualist is to have lots of goals. That way you can call upon any given goal at any time to serve your needs — even if you have no intention of seeing it through to the eventual end.

On projects

Have you ever heard of “Project Scope Creep”? Neither have I, but he sounds terrifying. The idea of having that kind of thing going on in terms of seeing a project through to completion is enough to make a person want to abandon ship and run for the hills. So do that. But do it as eventually as possible.

On priorities

Priorities play an important role in both pressing and eventual productivity. Without them, you’ll not have a road-map for your tasks that help you get to the goals that matter most to you. But with Eventualism, because you are keeping your goals and tasking at a highly-evolved (and highly-eventualized) rate, priorities are the veil — or beard — that you can hide your productive nature behind.

On procrastination

Procrastination is about having a plan to do something and then executing it eventually while Eventualism is about eventually doing something based on a plan to do so eventually all along.

On putting it all together

So, as you can see, Eventualism is a bunch of little stuff and a whole lot of a lot of stuff. But how do you put all of that stuff together? You do it with a little strategy I like to call togetherication. Putting together all of the pieces of an eventual lifestyle is the toughest thing to do both consistently and eventually. This is where the systemization of Eventualism comes into play.

You’ll need to figure what stuff should be eventualized when — and how - before moving ahead with the next bit of stuff, and so on. It sounds more complicated than it is…and that’s because you often will only eventualize only one or two things per day, so the “so on” becomes a non-factor.

So, there you have it. How does this all tie into leadership? Well, leaders don’t lead from the get-go. They eventually lead. So go forth and lead… in your own time.

Photo: Flickr / konszvi CC BY-NC-SA 2.0