So much “To Do”, so little time.

Does everything on your “To-Do” list actually need to be there? Are you letting people put obligations on your plate that shouldn’t really be yours? Are you creating obligations for yourself that don’t actually need to exist?

This can be a sticky area because what ends up on our “to-do” lists so often is a result of our boundaries (or lack thereof). The topic of boundaries needs its own dedicated blog post, or posts, so I won’t do more than acknowledge their importance here. However, as we move into the busy holiday season, I wanted to give you some tips for dealing with the overwhelm that can so often accompany this time. Let’s start today with managing your “to-do” list.

When you are feeling particularly overwhelmed with all of the tasks that must get done, feeling as though you have no idea where to start and not even close to enough time to actually accomplish everything, try this little trick. Take a few minutes to sit with your list and organize it. 

Sort the tasks by level of urgency first. If nothing is truly urgent, take the most challenging task, the one that will require the most time and energy to complete, and put it at the top of the list. By tackling the most demanding tasks first thing, you ensure that your energy isn’t depleted when you get to them. Once your tasks are sorted by urgency, figure out which one you are going to do right now and which one you’ll do right after that. Then you can sort the remainder into “later - urgent” and “later - not urgent”. As you sort your list, ask yourself of each task - “Is this mine?” “Could I ask for help with this?” “Does this actually need to get done?” With any luck, you’ll find that not everything on your list actually belongs to you or even needs to be on the list to begin with!

Part of organizing your list should also be incorporating rest breaks. You could consider trying the Pomodoro technique for bigger tasks requiring more focus. Set a timer for 25 minutes and when it goes off, take a 5-minute rest break. Get up, stretch your legs, have some water, whatever restful activity your body is craving, then get back to it for another 25. After 4 rounds of this, take a longer (15-30 minute) break. At the very least, make sure you schedule in time to eat and time to get outside and get some fresh air (even if it’s just standing on your front steps for a few minutes). If your list has several different categories of tasks on it with no real priority aside from just needing to get done at some point, try switching between types of tasks to give the different parts of your brain a break. I like to fold laundry or empty the dishwasher in between writing content for Instagram or replying to emails for example.

Did I mention the importance of actually writing a list?! Your pre-frontal cortex (the reasoning, planning, and decision-making center of your brain) will be so much more effective at doing its job if it isn’t also trying to keep track of that long list of to-dos in the first place! Get it out of your brain and onto the page, notepad, excel spreadsheet, sticky notes, whatever!

If you are ever stuck feeling super resistant to even starting a particular task because you know (or think you know) it’s going to be tedious or difficult, the key is to get yourself to just start. One of my favourite ways to get myself going on difficult tasks is to set a 15-minute timer and tell myself that if I’m still struggling with it at the 15-minute mark, I can stop and return to it the next day. Nine times out of 10 by the time my timer goes off I’ll have gotten over the initial resistance and be able to continue to work with relative ease for much longer than I would have thought possible.

As a final bit of wisdom for you, remember that as a human, you are likely notorious for thinking you can get more done in a day than you actually can. Sure, some days you can be incredibly productive, churning out content or checking off a ton of those chores, but some days just aren’t going to flow and you need to let that be okay. Extend some of that compassion we talked about last week to yourself and don’t stress it if the laundry isn’t folded and it’s grilled cheese for dinner again!

As always, I’d love to hear from you if you found this helpful, if there are any other tips or tricks that you use and would like to share with me, or if you just want to chat or request a topic for a future post! Just send me an email! eileen@myluminouslife.ca

#todolist #pomodorotechnique #productivityhacks #restisproductive #boundaries #timemanagement #restisresistance #getshitdone