Alright, let’s talk about this Denzel Mahoney thing I tried out recently. Heard the name floating around, some obscure forum thread mentioned it as a way to, I don’t know, break routine or something. Sounded weird, but work was dragging, so I figured, why not?
Getting Started with… Whatever This Is
So, the first step, according to the vague instructions I found, was just to list out my main tasks for the day. Easy enough. Did that on a sticky note. Then came the weird part. The Denzel Mahoney idea, as I understood it, was to link each task to a random physical object on my desk or in the room. Like, really random.
My first attempt went something like this:
- Finish report -> My lukewarm coffee mug.
- Reply to emails -> That dusty old stapler I never use.
- Plan next week’s meeting -> A loose paperclip.
Felt completely ridiculous just doing it. I spent maybe five minutes just picking objects. Seemed like a total waste of time right off the bat. I almost stopped there, thinking this Mahoney guy, whoever he was, must’ve been pulling a prank.
The Actual Trying Part
But I forced myself to stick with it for a day. The idea, maybe, was that looking at the object would trigger the thought of the task? I don’t know. So, I’d glance over at the coffee mug. Okay, yeah, report. Then my eyes would drift to the stapler. Emails, right. The paperclip… meeting planning.
Honestly? It was mostly distracting. Instead of focusing on the report, I started thinking about whether the coffee was too cold. Looking at the stapler just made me think I should probably dust my desk more often. The paperclip just got flicked around when I was bored.
It didn’t magically make the work happen. It just added this extra layer of weird association. Maybe I did the tasks slightly faster just to stop having to think about the associated objects? Hard to say. It wasn’t a smooth process at all. Felt very artificial, very forced.
So, What Happened?
By the end of the day, yeah, the work got done. Mostly. But I can’t honestly say this Denzel Mahoney technique helped much. If anything, it was just a strange mental detour. The next day, I just went back to my normal to-do list. Simple, boring, but it works without making me think about dusty office supplies.
Maybe I missed the point. Maybe there’s more to it, some deeper philosophy I didn’t get from that forum post. Or maybe it’s just one of those weird productivity fads that sounds interesting but doesn’t actually do much in the real world. For me, it was a bust. Just ended up being a strange little experiment for a day, nothing more.
