By Dr. Patricia Carrington

An exciting new use I have discovered for EFT is its application to a "To Do" list.

Why do we need help with a "To Do" list in the first place? The reason is that while "To Do" lists are very useful, they have a quality of "forcing" about them, which can easily cause resistance in all of us. No one likes to be forced to do anything, even by our own selves, and if you will pick up a "To Do" list that you have made and look at it, you will notice something very interesting when you think about putting it into effect.

EFT can step in to change the tenor of our thinking about such a list and our reactions to

Multiply the Power of EFT: 52 New Ways to Use EFT that Most People Don’t Know About

doing it. The result is that we will be far more apt to get a large number of those items crossed off by the end of the day as "completed".

Let's take an imaginary "To Do" list which has as its first item a reminder to write to a certain person, "Lorraine", about something we had asked her to do for us which in fact needs to be explained to her again much more fully so that she can decide whether or not to comply with our request. What happens in our mind as we contemplate this?

If you observe yourself carefully and monitor your own self talk as you think about writing to such a person, you will see that it might go something like this "Oh yes, I have to explain to Lorraine. She may be upset at hearing what I have to say because it may not fit into her plans, so I'll have to be diplomatic. Obviously that's not going to be easy. In fact it feels stressful just to think of sitting down to write to her. It's going to require concentration and tact and she may not like what I say anyway"…. etc.. etc.

Notice how we build up the difficulty of the letter or e-mail that we must get out to Lorraine, seeing it as onerous and very difficult.

Now watch what happens when we apply EFT, as I strongly suggest you do systematically to each item on your own "To Do" list. If you were tapping on the letter to Lorraine, your EFT Statement might go something like:

"Even though it will be a burden to have to be diplomatic with Lorraine, and she may not like me anyway when I send it, I choose to let it be light and easy to write and let go of wanting to control the result."

After doing a round of EFT on this statement, when you look at this item on your "To Do" list again, you may be surprised at how the weightiness of the task has changed. You will probably see the writing of this letter now in its true perspective, as something you can sit down and run off quickly and graciously, and let it go at that.

When the weight is taken off them, items on your "To Do" list can usually be whipped through at a much faster pace. Here is another example of a fictitious item on your list –– to produce 20 ideas for a project concerned with EFT. Twenty ideas! That may seem at first to be an insurmountable number! But notice what happens when we apply EFT to that issue as well. Suppose we were to use a phrase like:

"Even though I have to come up with 20 ideas, I choose to find this remarkably easy way to do so by including restatements of ideas that I've expressed very well in the past."

Tapping on this is likely to make the whole process much easier for you as you think about it. It’s amazing how often we resist letting the things we have to do be easy. It’s almost as if they were not as important if they were easy and in fact if this seems to bother you unduly you can do an interim EFT statement which might go like this:

"Even though it would seem ridiculous (as though I were cheating, etc.) if this task were too easy, I choose to let it be easy and be comfortable with that."

Now suppose that having tapped on this statement that the drama is automatically taken out of the task and it becomes just "something to get done"? It’s amazing how often we dramatize and exaggerate what is on our "To Do" lists. EFT can counteract that.

The third item on your list might be to revise a report. Before you do EFT this could seem to you to be a heavy task, but suppose you were to tap on, "Even though it's feels heavy and time-consuming to have to do those revisions, I choose to do them easily and efficiently in a surprisingly short period of time."

By tapping on that statement, the immensity of the project could shrink and you would see it in its proper respective.

I cannot describe how much more I get done when I use EFT on the items on my "To Do" list, and how much easier and more relaxed accomplishing them becomes. I highly recommend this approach to your lists. It can change the tenor of your day as well as increase your level of efficiency, and it will allow for a relaxation and pleasure in what you’re doing that the forced tasks never possess.

Many descriptions of new ways to use EFT appear in Dr. Carrington’s book, Multiply the Power of EFT: 52 New Ways to Use EFT that Most People Don’t Know About.