Don’t Worry About It
I hate this phrase.
For me, hearing this phrase does the exact opposite of its intent. It creates worry. I find that worry is a waste of time. I’m with Travis Bradberry on this. He said:
“’What if?’ statements throw fuel on the fire of stress and worry. Things can go in a million different directions, and the more time you spend worrying about the possibilities, the less time you’ll spend focusing on taking action that will calm you down and keep your stress under control.”
I avoid using “What if?” statements as much as possible because they bring on worry. Instead, I do what I can to create instances where there’s no need to ask that question because I’ve already put a process in place that negates it.
“What if I can’t get that blog post done today?” leads to the answer “You will because you’ve set aside 11pm to 1:30am to work on maintaining stuff. You’ll write it then, if all else fails.”
“What if I don’t know what to do on Friday?” leads to the answer “You’ve already defined Friday as the day you give your focus to planning tasks, so just look at those tasks, and you’ll know what to do.”
“What if I get sick? My family has a cold, and I’m afraid I’ll get it too” leads to the answer “If that happens, then you’ll just look at things you’ve tagged as low-energy tasks and work on those while you focus on getting better.”
Instead of worrying about “What if?” scenarios as they come up, focus on creating clear answers that remove the worry as much as possible in advance. Every time something new comes up, create that clarity, so you have a solution when it comes up again – which will inevitably happen in some way, shape, or form.
Make that happen, and then when someone says “Don’t worry about it” in the future, you’ll be able to do just that.
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Mike Vardy is a writer, productivity strategist, and the creator of TimeCrafting. He is the author of the upcoming book TimeCrafting: A Better Way to Get The Right Things Done. Mike is also renowned speaker and has taught productivity on CreativeLive, Skillshare, and LinkedIn Learning where his courses are among the most popular in the business category.
