Until Sir Roger Bannister did so on May 6, 1954 at Iffley Road Track in Oxford, everyone believed that it was impossible for a human being to run a mile in less than 4 minutes (Bannister did it in 3 minutes and 59.4 seconds). In other words, the expectation that someone could run a mile in under 4 minutes was considered 3. Now, running a mile in under 3 minutes may be considered unrealistic until human endurance and ability increases to that level.

People deal with unrealistic expectations every day. I have heard many people tell me that time management as they knew it—making lists of tasks—did not work for them because they hardly completed a small fraction of the items on their lists and finally stopped the practice altogether. The problem was not that they did not complete the tasks; it was that they put more on their lists than they had any chance of completing.

In the earlier chapters, we discussed creation and prioritization of task lists. This includes filters...