Phase 3 – Building a Task List

Welcome back!

When last we met, we discussed your building two lists with the end purpose of reducing those lists to one list of flaws which we will then go off and fix.

All-righty, then. You now have have a single list – and its contents attest quite loudly as to why you are not the demon of a chess player that you want to be. The items on this list are – and ALWAYS have been – barriers to your progress.

But take heart – for the list of the issues before you now offer up a choice. You can play ten thousand games per year – for many years - and get past these problems. Of course - unless you are a budding grand master – you’ve got a life!

Or, you can take a short cut and conclude that – if you haven’t the time to fix your chess – you’ll have to make some time to fix your SELF. We’ll talk later about just how EASY this is – but for now – we’ve got a task list to build.

Your task list will clearly spell out the required tasking you’ll need to commit to, in order to erase your flaws and to approach the chess board with confidence. Don’t let it frighten you too much, though. The process is simplicity itself.

Let us begin by understanding the value of the work you’ve done so far. The list that you constructed has only those items on it which either are a problem, standing between you and a great chess game – OR – that you FEEL are a problem, standing between you and a great chess game. Every attribute that compliments your ability to play chess like a master has been extracted from the list. Only the flaws - in need of repair - remain.

Of course – some of the items now on this list are imaginary – and some are quite real.

Either way – the problem is the same. Anything that you perceive as a problem is as great a barrier as the real thing – maybe more – since it is in your mind and cannot be as easily confronted as a real world problem can.

To illustrate that statement, let us consider a fear of heights. This is not the same as the fear of falling – even though the two concepts are related.

Anybody who works in the heights knows that the fear of falling is quite real. What do they do? They take precautions. They undergo special training. They wear safety harnesses. They wear parachutes if necessary – but because the fear is real it can be addressed using real tools from the real world.

BUT – the fear of heights is all in the mind. True – the plane might fall – or your harness might break, but that hasn’t happened yet, and in general it NEVER happens (planes and harnesses are designed to be safe) – so the fear is an irrational one.

A harness will not put such a person at ease. Nor will a parachute calm their fears. That’s because neither of these addresses the root of the problem – which is of course - that the plane is in the heights! To fix this problem, you’ve got to put the plane down – or to get the patient to change his mind about how he feels about heights! In other words, you’ve got to change the patient – NOT the conditions.

That’s precisely where we are with your problems you see. If you are timid, or confused, or lack confidence during chess play – there certainly is no reason to be. Nobody is going to shoot you at dawn if you lose. Fortunately, you can change the way you respond to the chessboard simply by changing YOU.

That this is doable is not even open for debate. It has BEEN doable for many decades now. The job before you now - is to decide what areas MUST be fixed immediately – and what areas can wait till later. What areas will give you the most bang for your buck?

By properly organizing your list – the answer will be clear. So, set the list into four separate categories. Let these be named:

Critical
High
Medium
Low

Once you have indicated severity for each item on your entire list, this step will be complete. Sort the list according to severity and store it safely away. It is now time to take stock of where we are.

You have all of the requirements to make the repairs on yourself. You know what’s broken about yourself– and you know the nature of the problem. You know what’s of critical priority – and what is of low priority. Now, you can now research some tools that have a targeted ability to fix each problem and commence preparations to make the repairs.

So – grab the utmost serious deficiency from the top of your list and meet me in part 4 – the final installation of this article. That’s where we will discuss how to deal with this problem.